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The Upward Leading 







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The Upward Leading 

Pi i iM i I'm k^ Under V ark >us Auspk 

By 

JAMES HENRY POTTS 



I 



CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
N E W YORK: E A T N A N D M A I N S 






I 

( I /( 



I RIGHT, 190 



PRELUDE. 

Pitiful indeed were man's estate without the 
Upward LEADING. 

His whole head sick, his heart faint, his eyes 
blinded, his tongue full of iniquity, his hands palsied 
by evil, his feet fast in the clay, what were his hope? 

But there is a Deliverer. He comes from on 
high. His hands are pierced. His head is crowned 
with thorns. His raiment is crimson. He dies. 

Anon He revives again, and becomes the Leader 
of men. His eves are lifted toward the Throne. 
His lips breathe benedictions. His heart is full of 
grace. His feet are pillars of fire. He travels in 
the greatness of His strength, and His steppings 
are heavenward. 

To follow Him is to find safe footing, joyous 
trusting, progressive living, and triumphant dying. 



CONTENTS 



Page 

I. The Mystery of Iniquity, - - 9 

II. The World's PEERLESS REPEATER, 31 

III. The Truth that Conquers, - 51 

IV. A Nut for Despisers to Crack, - 60 
V. Death, Life, Peace, - 75 

VI. Tine Purpose of Preaching, - 88 

VII. The Christian's Secret of a 

Satisfied Life, - - - 104 

VIII. A Pleasant Final Adieu, - - 118 



I. 

THE MYSTERY OF INIQUITY. 

"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work" 

— i Thess. ii, 7. 

The "mystery of iniquity" is the antithesis of 

the "mystery of godliness." Both phrases are Scrip- 
tural, and both contain a world of meaning. 

The mystery of godliness embraces the redemp- 
tion of Christ, which mystery even the angels de- 
sired to look into. It embraces the regeneration of 
a human soul, which, like the coming and going of 
the wind, contains unfathomable mysteries. It em- 
braces all those great truths connected with the 
Christian scheme, so many of which are not discov- 
erable by science or human skill. They are spirit- 
ually discerned. 

The mystery of iniquity, on the other hand, em- 
braces the workings of Satanic power, the cunning 
devices of wicked men, and all those uns livable 
problems connected with the strange moral history 

9 



io The Upward Leading. 

of our race and its present status as related to the 
revealed standard of righteousn 

There is as much mystery in evil as in ^ood, 
and perhaps more. Goodness is known to be bene- 
ficial to man. It promotes health, happiness, and 
pleasing ct. "Godlii profitable unto all 

things, having promise of the life that now is, and 

of that which is t- The only real mystery 

ut it is that men do not naturally seek it, embrace 

it. love it, and earth. What is it that 

alienate- man From God; that causes him to hold 
the truth in unrighteousness, and pursue evil to his 
own death? What hi 'lone that man should 

hate I [is character, neglect Hi ej 1 lis 

laws, grie^ nd trample under foot the 

i >d <if ] i r that qu 

n? Is there not a world of mystery in it? How- 

r you may view it. wl you mav think of 

tlu- principles involved, tl nected with re- 

ligion and life, tl I over and throughout all 

time, are inscrutably mysterious, 

Tanl says, "The n niquity doth already 

work." The word ""already" hint- at an unknown 
distance of origin and d< ent of the strange 

power which has made for man'- overthrow. The 
Greek of "iniquity" is la\. *s, defiant rejection 



TOT MyOTEOT o* Iniquity, II 

of God's law. It is elsewhere called 4k the man of 
>in." whose advent and work in the world arc as old 
as history and as damaging as hell. 

It is supposed thai the apostle designed to make 
particular application of the mystery-working in- 
iquity to the character and designs of Antichrist, the 
lawless one, wh ming is the caricature, the 

black shadow of Christ; whose ambition is to undo 
the work of Christ; whose plan is after the working 
itan, with all power and signs and lying won- 
and with all deceivahleness of unrighteousness 
in them that perish, because they received not the 
of the truth that they might be saved. Possibly, 
also, there are ecclesiastical and national questions 
intermingled with the apostle's references, which it 
would be out of my province to-day to consider. 

Some writers think that the expression "mystery 
of iniquity'' refers to Gnosticism and other such 
doctrinal errors as were springing up about that 
time, and which iti due season accomplished so much 
mischief in the thoughts and deeds of men. Others 
think that the allusion is to the demon of Romish 
idolatry and superstition which in course of time 
took possession of the Christian Church, and visited 
upon the race that awful midnight of the Dark Ages. 
Others still conceive that the reference is to certain 



12 The Upward Leading. 

elements of Judaism which early infected Chris- 
tianity, giving no end of trouble to those who sought 
the truth, and nothing but the truth, in the light and 
life of Christ. Lightfoot says that the mystery of 
iniquity can not be understood save in the light of 
the facts connected with the downfall of Judaism 
with all its deceivers, false Christs, Antichrist, and 
lying prophets. Be this as it may, I am disposed 
to accept the phrase as applicable to everything that 
settetfa itself tip in opposition to God. It is one and 
the same impurity diffusing itself over many ages, 
and assuming such forms and methods as are best 
adapted to the current time and place. 

Iniquity is em of mysteries. In the Bible 

sense, a mystery is not necessarily something which 
remains always a secret, but that which is for a 
while hidden, and then in due time is manifested. 

Some forms of mystery are open, and others are con- 
cealed. Wry often those that are seemingly open 

are clothed with minor mysteries a- in>crutable 

any. 

Iniquity has various forms and disguises. It 
has some vile forms in the Old World which we 
do not yet feel in the New. France has forms of 
it unknown in Germany. Spain has outcroppings 
of it unfelt in England. Every nation, sooner or 



Tin: M \ STERY 01 In [QUI FY. 13 

later, experiences developments of this mystic power 

Of evil which mar its happiness and threaten its very 

life. 

I for one moment come to speak of certain phases 
of iniquity at work against our weal in public affairs 

in America. 

We are a strong nation. 

Our resources are inexhaustible. 

We have much inherent vitality. 

We love our country, and would die, if need be, 
in its defense. If a foreign power should invade 
us we would repel it, and perhaps crush it as a pen- 
alty for its impertinence. 

But we are not a pure nation. We may be as 
good as any others, and better than most, but we 
are not pure. Evil is at work in our national life, 
sapping the secret springs of our vitality. We count 
ourselves safe from foreign invasion, but we are 
not secure from the ravages of a secret foe which is 
subtly laying schemes for our decadence or over- 
throw. 

Let me not hint that our national affairs are 
worse than formerly. These are not the only days 
when conscientious men have descried dangers. 
Writing from Philadelphia in 1776, while Congress 
was in session, John Adams said to his wife that 



14 The Upward Leading. 

the spirit of venality then prevalent was the "most 
dreadful and alarming enemy America had to op- 
pose. It is," said he, "as rapacious and insatiable as 
the grave. If God Almighty does not interfere by 
His grace to control this universal idolatry to the 
mammon oi unrighteousness, we shall be given up 
to the chastisements of His judgments. I am 
ashamed of the age I live in." 

ver been. Kv ration has had 

its evils to confront, and if each generation had only 

Stroyed its own, the world would have made m 
rapid headway toward the goal of a right ite. 

One of tin- i current national 

iniquity is the growing indifference of respectable 
nd the consequently increased ac- 
tivity and influence of unprincipled demag 
In Europe public life is higher in tone than private 

life. In America the contl true. It would not 

be profitable t<> exchange our n r th 

but it would be advant ir unhappy 

error. W< n when ever) capable and 

worthy man is so engr n private business that 

he is willing to ttirn 

and idiots the management of public ! In no 

other country on earth, much contempt attach 

to the word "politician" as in our own youthful, 
wealthy, hustling America. 



Tiir Mystery o* [niquity, 15 

There is enough political corruption in the city 
Vw York, could ii be transformed into literal 
mud, to sink ten thousand ocean steamers five thou- 
sand fathoms deep, and hold them anchored there 
until doomsday and beyond. And it would he worth 
:r nation a million times the value of the ships 
could the corruption be thus disposed of. 

But New York is not the only rotten city. It 

he the center, hut it is by no means the circum- 
ference of demagogism and decayed politics. 

We are a nation of idolaters. Our idols are our 
parties, and these parties are big or little to us ac- 
cordingly as we are blinded to their faults. If you 
want to know the faults of a political party, read the 
opposition press. If you want to ignore its detest- 
able features, take it as you do a pill, — shut your 

s and swallow. 

Another mystery of iniquity at work among us 
is the insane scramble for material possessions. The 
future wealth of America is a quantity that can 
not be measured, and the passion to share in it has 
grown to the proportions of a wicked frenzy. Fraud 
is palliated. Gambling is encouraged. Robbery is 
winked at. Honest}- is considered by many a Sun- 
<la\ -school fad. Alammonism is undermining our 
security. Greed is devouring our integrity. A 



16 The Upward Leading, 

Mount Pelee of destruction may follow our national 
carelessness as to the violation of God's law. 

And what a mystery this unprincipled ambition 
is ! Wealth begets disappoinment and vexation in 
some, and pride and austerity in others. It creates 
hurtful social distinctions, and awakens animosities 
betwixt rich and poor. It makes the most amiable 
le almost incapable of measuring the value of 
anything except by the money standard. It renders 
the rich a privileged class, and human nature never 
fails to abtlfi da! privilege. "As a tropical 

climate breed- snakes, 50 does wealth breed vice, 
and misery feeds it." 

Another mystery of iniquity which is playing 
havoc with the national conscience is the fostering 
n to the diabolical liquor-traffic. The prin- 
ciple of license has hardened the national heart until 
it refuses to Stand appalled at depths of depravity 
and woe which would make Satan himself tremble. 
The lamented Governor Bagley, of Michigan, once 
said that intemperance, more than all other evils, 
threatens the life of the nation and the moral char- 
acter < if every citizen. 

Two billions a year spent in drunkenness! 

One hundred thousand souls a year hurled into 
hell ! 



Tin: Mystery oi ' 17 

Million- of citizens demoralized, and millions 
more involved in suffering thai finite rules can not 

-nrc. 

Lord Macaulay relates that during the memo- 
rable siege of Londonderry the soldiers became so 
perfectly hardened by familiarity with the dreadful 
scenes wrought by famine and plague that they 
finally could sit down (Mi the ghastly bodies of their 
arades and utter hideous jokes mingled with 
profanity and loud laughter. Thus the melancholy 
spectacle presented by the poor victims of strong 
drink is so constantly and widely before the public 
eye that the finer feelings of humanity become 
blunted and dead. 

"The family circle is the type of heaven; let 
drunkenness come in, and it becomes the type of 
hell." Rum so brutalizes a man that the surround- 
ings of the fireside and the quiet, smooth, and sweet 
enjoyments of the family circle have no charm for 
him. The tender voice of the devoted wife he has 
sworn to love and cherish has no music in his ear. 
The merry prattle of innocent children, for whose 
existence he is responsible, has no inspiration for his 
heartless nature. For him there is no home but the 
rum-hole, the gambling hell, or the resort of vice, 
and if he can find the three in one the better he is 
2 



18 The Upward Leading. 

suited. He is the enemy of every good institution. 
The Church loses twenty thousand members every 
year through this beastly habit. Every noble organ- 
ization has its victims, and every worthy profession 
sustains its dreadful losses through this iniquitous 
mystery. 

But rum is not the only road to ruin. There are 
secret bypaths as well as broad boulevards over 
which men travel, as if led by demons, to their ever- 
lasting destruction. 

Man is a b »rn worker of iniquity. He 18 the 
only creature that works at evil as at a trade. Other 
creatures may tear and slay, but their ravages are 
in keeping with their natures and in the regular 
order of their lives. Man was not created a brute. 
EDs hands were not formed with claws to tear with, 
DOT his feet with hoofs to Crush with. lie has rea- 
SOning faculties and a moral nature, lie can per- 
petuate his life without harming Others of his kind. 
He can | his own happiness without destroy- 

ing the happines ers. 

Yet the brutal things which man need not do, he 
lie need n<>t murder to live; yet his feet are 
Swift to shed blood. lie need not pillage and de- 
stroy; yet destruction and miser} are in his ways, 
and the way of peace has he not known. Since the 



Tn i: M \ 51 BR\ <'i' 1 N [Ql 1 1 v. 19 

death of righteous Abel down to the latest murder, 
the history o\ man is marked by violence, rapine, 
oppression, tyranny, and slaughter, 

What a criminal record has our present a. ! 
What unnumbered crimes have come to light! 
What unbounded iniquity still remains concealed! 
Xo land is free, no generation exempt. 

Our own country is full of violence. Strong men 
are killed. Helpless women are slaughtered. Whole 
families are ushered into eternity together. Red- 
handed assassins are all around us. Mobs can be 
stirred up in any city. The law is powerless to pre- 
serve order. The South is full of oppression and 
savagery. The North has too much of the same ele- 
ment to ma'e our remonstrances against Southern 
brutality effective. 

In Xew York City alone about seventy-five thou- 
sand persons are annually brought before the police 
courts charged with crime. Michigan has one of the 
most unenviable murder records of any State in the 
Union. The fairest city in America is full of thieves. 
Crimes against virtue are chronicled with alarming 
frequency, and summary punishment in defiance of 
law almost every day disgraces the good name of 
the land we love. 

What does it all mean ? It means that man un- 



20 The Upward Leading. 

helped, unrestrained, unsaved, is an iniquitous mon- 
ster, whose moral record has cursed the earth. 

It is affirmed that every iniquitous heart has a 
dark chamber, an unlighted corner, into which no 
human being", friend or foe. is permitted to gaze. 
And some of these heart-chambers are full of ghostly 
forms of evil — hidden mysteries of iniquity — trouble- 
some to the conscience, burdensome to the memory 
in waking hours, and startling to the apprehension 
in the night virions. And these hidden iniquities are 
observable in the moral nature, in the contrary and 
hurtful things which they prompt the person to say 
or do. 

A man knows, for instance, that ample provision 
is made for his well-being, yet be deliberately ch' 

what is pernicious and productive of misery. He 

admits that virtue is better f<>r him than vice, and 

then chooses vice* He knows that purity is better 
for him than impurity, and still he clings to im- 
purity. Light has come into the world, and he 
heartily approves it. but C darkness rather than 

light because bis deeds are evil. And he is so mys- 
teriously infatuated that be chooses the society of 
enemies rather than friends, and the bondage of sin 
rather than the freedom of the Gospel. And the 
memory is so affected by it that good impressions, 



Tin: Mystery o* i niqui py. 21 

good instructions, and good experience are forgot- 
ten, or they are so nearlj erased from the memory 
that they have no influence for good. And tin.- af- 
fections and affinities are so debased that they cling 
only to what is vile, and they turn with loathing and 
hatred from what is pure and noble. Its results are 

Observed in the body, — in corrupting the tastes, in 
ring appetites and passions, so that man is liter- 
ally driven to seek and use what will disgrace and 
ruin him. And although knowing full well the tend- 
encies of vicious indulgences, still their love of evil 
is stronger than their love of life or their fear of 
death, and "they give themselves over to work all 
uncleanness with greediness." 

It is mysterious how r completely iniquity sub- 
jugates those who are devoted to it. It makes such 
drafts upon the vital forces that they are soon ex- 
hausted. "For the wicked do not live out half their 
days." And it leaves its insignia upon the person. 
It advertises itself through the eye, the features, 
the breath or habits, so that the particular vice to 
which a man is addicted may be known to all ; and in 
this spiritual bondage there is no pow r er to escape 
or desire to escape. For if there is a desire for re- 
lief in the sinner's heart it had a higher origin than 
iniquity. Sin never inspired such a desire, and it 



22 The: Upward Lkading. 

was never entertained by Satan's consent. The mys- 
tery of iniquity thus infuses and enfolds and controls 
the sinner, leaving no capacity or desire or hope for 
relief. And this is not an extreme view. "Know ye 
not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to 
obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether 
n unto death, or of obedience unto righteous- 

Here is a young man who from earliest respon- 
sible life yields himself a servant to obey the lusts of 

the flesh. He indulges the natural propensity which 

he finds within himself to brood ever all lorn 

corrupt imaginations — foul visions of lust and folly 

— until his whole mental nature is polluted and his 

spiritual faculties paralyzed. Perhaps he giv 

spin* to his own evil inclinations by poring over the 
pages of printed tilth and listening to the pernicious 
recitals of abandoned men. Iniquity in him reaches 

a monstrous development. Evil concupiscence is the 

Fountain whence all the streams of base desire, 

unholy impulse, and reckless actions flow, A pol- 
luted imagination is the raging furnace from which 

emanate sinful emotions and depraved suggestions 

like so many sparks, setting on lire the COUrs 
nature and creating in himself and in companions 
around him a foregleam of hell's consuming fires, 



Tin: M\ sri:uv 0* I \i< .1 i i \ . 23 

burning up all that is good in his heart, and burning 
in, deeply and permanentlj . all that is corrupt, brutal, 
sensual, de^ ilish. 

It is said thai On sonic {)[ the walls in the ruins 

of Pompeii were found images and superscriptions 

Foul for public view, too demoniacal and obscene 

for respectable vision. So with the walls and inner 

chambers of iniquitous hearts. Deep down below 
the rubbish, or possibly below the fair exterior 
many of the dirtiest men affect the cleanest outward 
deportment) — down below the outside, the company 
side, are thoughts, fancies, desires, and imaginations 
as dark and filthy, as corrupting, as fiendish, as low, 
and as hellish as ever were nourished in the bosom 
of any creature on earth or in the pit beneath. And 
impossible that such pollution can be carried in 
the mind without staining the physical nature and 
ying the spiritual. Those instincts and powers 
given of God for noble ends are prostituted and in- 
dulged until perversion ensues, the vitalities are 
sapped, the moral forces are weakened, the tissues 
are injured, and the entire life becomes wrecked. 
Long continued, such practices affect the mental 
powers, weakening the memory, dethroning the rea- 
son, and driving the victim to despair. 

Closely connected with this secret perversion of 



24 The Upward Leading. 

the sexual instincts and powers are certain social and 
domestic crimes which, among high authorities, have 
created alarm as the precursors of national decay 
and race suicide. It is to be feared that the unnatu- 
ral and monstrous sentiment of late years so preva- 
lent that it is excusable in a married pair to avoid 
parental responsibility may. sooner or later, bring 
upon our people the curse of an infinite God. It is 
the crime of our age and country. Motherhood is 
no longer the glory of wifehood. Dr. Reamy, a dis- 
tinguished physician, says that from a very large 
verba] and written correspondence he is satisfied we 
are "fast becoming a nation of murderers/ 1 

To a large extent children are bom to such par- 
ents only as the parents can not avoid the natural 
consequences of the conjugal relation. And even 

these helpless little visitors are often unwelcome. 
The\- have to win the affection of the murderous 

minds which sought by ever}- device to prevent their 

entrance into life. 

Infanticide is more common than homicide. The 

same spirit of murder which prompts to the one, in 

^sequences upon mental states, leads logically 
to the other. Children born to such parents, during 
the entire period of their prenatal life, draw their 
>u>tenance from iniquitous fountains. They liter- 



The Mystery <>i ; [niquii 2 s 

ally feed on murderous thoughts, and no matter how 
ardently they may be loved and fondled after birth, 
the evil tendencies bred into them are nol likely to 
be eradicated. What wonder, then, that murderers 
stalk abroad to-day, or that the tribe of Cain is 
frightfully on the increase? As ye sow, that shall 
ye also reap. 

And not murder alone, but crimes of every hue 
arc traceable, directly or indirectly, to these unclean 
and debasing fountains. By the laws of heredity 
each generation is saturated by the evil streams 
which flow from its predecessor. The despicable 
traits of character and shameful revelations in fash- 
ionable and criminal life are the consequences of per- 
version. 

What is the meaning of the modern epidemic of 
suicide ? Can anybody explain it ? What mystery 
of evil is it that drives such multitudes to self- 
destruction? Is not life worth living? Never more 
so to those who have a normal, healthy, holy life to 
live But to the debased and self-indulgent, to the 
diseased and crime-perverted, it becomes an unbear- 
able burden. 

Hark! A revolver shot! The suicide lies wel- 
tering in his own blood. See yonder victim clutch- 
ing a knife and plunging it into his own jugular. 



26 Tin- Upward Leading. 

Look at this wretch swallowing poison, trying lo 

drown the stings of conscience in swelling waves of 
physical agony. Or perhaps the cowardly mortal 
chooses a painless death. He goes down to the river 
brink in the silent hour of night. He looks down 
into the liquid depths, and thinks he descries the 
bosom of Mother Nature inviting him to repose. He 

hears the rippling of the passing waters, and inter- 
prets it as a spirit voice bidding him leave his tene- 
ment of polluted clay. Ik looks upward to the 
Stars, and in their twinkling light he seems to behold 
the glimmer of a happier day. He glances around 

upon the earth, bids farewell to the scenes of his 
prostitution and sin, and then, closing his eyes, 

clenching his setting his teeth, and nerving 

himsHf for the dreadful deed, he plunges into the 
tide. The water over him and he disappears. 

The chill an uses him b i action. I Ie tries to breathe. 

His lungs till with the Unnatural element, typical of 

the perv< a Inch have tilled his life. There IS 

a struggle. His pen wide. A panorama of 

vivid recollections of folly and crime sweep before 

his quickened vision. Then unconsciousness steals 
over him, death ensues, and all is over. Erelong he 
is missed from his accustomed haunt-. A search is 
made. The fact of suicide becomes apparent. The 



Tii i: M V STERV «»r I \ IQ! HTY. 27 

friends and the newspapers express wonder. Why 
should he have taken his own life? No business 
complications, no social entanglements, no incurable 
can be named as the cause. It is all a mys- 
tery, 

A mystery? Yes, perchance, a "mystery of in- 
iquity" loading his conscience, hurling reason from 

her throne, and goading him to an untimely end. 
Xo wonder that Dr. II. C. Wood should affirm that 
wine and women — in other words, vice — are prob- 
ably at the base of one-half or one-third of the in- 
sanity of the world, and even a greater proportion 
of the suicides. 

But let me turn from the contemplation of these 
forbidding extremes. A normal, hallowed, pure, and 
happy life is possible to every man. God never de- 
signed that we should become the slaves of passion 
or the monopolists of lust. St. Paul inquires, "Know 
ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the king- 
dom of God ? Be not deceived : neither fornicators, 
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor 
abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor 
tons, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extor- 
tioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such 
some of you ; but ye are washed, but ye are 
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the 



28 The Upward Leading. 

Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." He says 
again: "Know ye not that your bodies are the mem- 
bers of Christ? Shall I then take the members of 
Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? 
God forbid." In these and many other passages the 
sacred writers shadow forth the complete redemp- 
tion of our natures from all that is perverted and de- 
grading. 

You ask me, Wherewithal shall a young man 
cleanse his way? Let me direct you to counsel better 

than mine. The Psalmist says, M By taking heed 
thereto according to Thy Word." It was his prayer, 

"Cleanse Thou me from secret faults." One greater 

than the Psalmist, the Physician that heals all dis- 

diagnoses the case with divine accuracy, and 

prescribes the remedy. Hear Him: "For from 

within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil 

thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, 
cow 58, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an 

evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness : all these evils 
come from within, and defile the man." The remedy, 
then, is to cleanse the fountain. Get the heart right, 
dean, pure, and the streams of speech and conduct 

which issue from it will be pure likewise. 

Brothers of the Young Men's Christian Associ- 
ation, hear the conclusion of the whole matter. We 



Tn i; M n STBRY < »i ; I NIQUI1 \ . 29 

arc born with a downward tendency. This is the 
common lot of all. The Psalmisl "We are 

shapen in iniquity." One has no natural purity to 
boast ^\ above another. Bui the Psalmist likewise 
. "Blessed is the man whose iniquities are for- 
given and whose sin is covered." Forgiven* 

through the merits of Ilim "who gave Himself for 

tis that He mighl redeem US from all iniquity." 
Therefore says St. Paul, "As ye have yielded your 
members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity 
unto iniquity ; even so now yield your members serv- 
ants to righteousness unto holiness/' 

There is one mystery older and mightier than 
the mystery of iniquity, and that is the mystery of 
Godliness. Thank God ! This mystery of Godli- 
ness is efficacious to drive out, root up, and eradicate 
from every heart the mystery of secret sin, and trans- 
form the entire nature into a new creature in Christ 
Jesu>. 

It is marvelous what a transformation Godliness 
makes in a human being. It is mysterious how that 
which is spiritual can so impress and renovate that 
which is material ; for it is certain that Godliness 
does reach, modify, and improve every faculty and 
power of the physical organism. The affections re- 
coil from all debasing attractions, shake off the slime 



30 The Upward Leading. 

of worldly alliances, and turn to more worthy ob- 
jects. The judgment is convinced by other evidence 
and the will controlled by other considerations. The 
result is the deportment is changed as well as the 
character. The persons once avoided are now sought 
and highly prized, and the society once coveted is 
now shunned with abhorrence. 

And this spiritual renewal leads to physical re- 
newal. "Know ye n<>t that ye are the temple of I 
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any 
man defile the temple of Cod, him shall Cod destroy ; 
for the tempi d IS holy, which temple ye are." 

The saved man can not reverence Cod and abuse 
His habitation, any more than he can respect a 
neighbor and break the windows and batter down 

the doors of his neighbor's house. 

An understanding enlightened by heavenly wis- 
dom and a conscience quickened by divine grace lead 
to jealous care of the body to preserve it from waste 

and injury, and to develop and use it in the service 

<1. And the body responds to the requirements 
of the Gospel. The dust of the world is shaken oft', 
the marks of dissipation disappear, and the redeemed 

man, clothed and in his right mind, becomes a new 
creature in Christ Jesus. 



II. 

THE WORLD'S PEERLESS REPEATER. 
"The tongue is a little member s and boastcth great 

tlliilgS." J AMI'S III, 5. 

SOMETIMES small agencies are mightily destruc- 
tive. One modern machine gun is more to be feared 
than ten thousand ancient catapults. 

The tongue is a small organ, but a tremendous 
power. Though boneless itself, it is a terrific bone- 
breaker. The whole world has by proverb acknowl- 
edged its destructiveness. 

"The boneless tongue, so small and weak, 
Can crush and kill," declared the Greek. 

"The tongue destroys a greater horde," 
The Turk asserts, "than does the sword." 

The Persian proverb wisely saith, 
U A lengthy tongue — an early death." 

Or sometimes takes this form instead, 
"Do n't let your tongue cut off your head." 

"The tongue can speak a word whose speed," 
y& the Chinese, "outstrips the steed." 

3i 



32 The Upward Leading. 

While Arab sages this impart, 

"The tongue's great storehouse is the heart" 

From Hebrew wit the maxim sprung. 
"Though feet should slip, ne'er let the tongue." 

The sacred writer crowns the wh 

"Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul." 

— Ri:v. P 11 1 li p Burroughs Strong. 

The pen is mightier than the sword, but the 
lie is mightier than the pen. It is heavier, 
sharper, swifter, swings easier, and never rusts or 
breaks. It is the worst kind of a weapon. It is a 
side-arm, shoulder-piece, and field ordnance, all in 
one. It is a bayonet to stab with, a rifle to shoot 

with, and a shell t<» cause explosions. It is a breech- 
loader, an endless repeater, and never hangs fire. 

furnished with telesco] hts, a hair-trigger, 
and shoots only pointed bullets that always carry up. 
By much use it becomes quick in action and power- 
ful in recoil. In battle, cannon sometimes become 
so hot as to be self-firing. The gunner has only to 

off his thumb from the touch-hole and let in 
the air to produce the discharge. ( Occasionally such 

pieces go off before the men are ready, and kill 

everybody around them. Some tongues arc just so. 
St. James "Behold how great a matter a little 

fire kindleth ! And the tongue is a fire, a world of 
iniquity: SO is the tOUgUe among our members, that 



Tm: Wnki.p's Peerless Repeater, 
it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the 

course of nature; and it is set Oil fire of lull." Hell- 
fire is like Greek fire: you can not put it out. It 
burns deep and strong, and continues forever. It 

can neither be confined nor checked in its terrific 

ravages. So with the fire of the tongue. "For every 

kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of 
things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of 
mankind; but the tongue can no man tame; it is an 
Unruly evil, full of deadly poison." The iniquitous 
words of an unruly tongue are perpetual irritants. 
They sting the moment they enter the ear, and con- 
tinue to rankle and fester after they have settled in 
the heart. They are the common origin of the most 
deadly of all heart diseases — malice. The apostle, 
referring to slanderous speech, says: "If ye have 
bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not. 
This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is 
earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and 
strife is. there is confusion and every evil work." 
Evil speaking is fiendish, "devilish." The fiend is 
yet incarnate, and therefore his diatribes are "sen- 
sual." They ring in the air of earth and echo in the 
smoke of hell. Nothing comes so near creating a 
jubilee in the pit of perdition as slander. Satan grins 
when the talebearer whispers, lie fondly anticipates 
3 



34 The Upward Leading. 

the earthly confusion which backbiting creates and 
the hellish furore which it ultimately insures. God 
says: "Whoso privily slandereth his neighbor, him 
will I cut off." He severs the slanderer from earth 
that he may go to his own place, and that place is 
not heaven. The home of God's elect has no room 
for such a disembodied spirit. "For without are 
5, and SOTCerers, and whoremongers, and mur- 
derers, and idolaters, and wh Iwcth flfkJ 
maketk a lie." The maker of a lie loveth Satan, 
"the father of lie-," and at death is hugged to the 
Satanic bosom. It i< some consolation to the good 
to know that in such cases Satan has an unyielding 

grip. He never let- go the spirit of the slanderer. 

A body thus defiled and a nature thus intlamed is too 
valuable an acquisition to lull'- domains t<> he al- 

ape. It is indubitably certain that for 
the pitiless talebearer there is no second probation. 

Tile fiat of the Almighty ever rings in his hopeless 
SOUl, "Thou shall not go Up to he a talehearer among 

my people/ 1 

When am one in conversation with Peter the 

Great said anything against a third party, he would 
stop the speaker and saj : "Hold on! Has this per- 
son no bright side? Tell me what excellencies you 
have noticed. It IS very easy to splash mud, btit I 



Thi World's Peerless Repeater, 35 

WOUld rather help a man to keep his coat clean." 

Would that we had a Peter the Greal at every corner 

to check people in thoughtless and reckless speech! 

The disposition to tattle is not always a natural 

propensity, and if it were it would only prove the 

fact of a fallen nature which needs correction. Ma- 
lignant motives are generally at the bottom of hurt- 
ful gossip. A black heart serves as the fountain of 
the sin-stained lips. "Doth a fountain send forth 
at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the 
fig-tree bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so 
can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh." 
The heart of the talebearer is wrong. Out of the 
heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, 
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 
"These are the things which defile a man." The 
society of such a person is unbearable. "In his com- 
pany." says the venerated Jay, "we are in a perfect 
inquisition ; we are tortured with questions concern- 
ing everybody and everything. It would be well for 
him to remember that he is accountable not only for 
his time, but his tongue." The apostle Peter was 
careful to warn Christians that every one is to guard 
his speech so as not to "suffer as a busybody in other 
men's matter 

What right has any person to assume the task of 



36 The: Upward Leading. 

disseminating ugly gossip? What right has any 
human being to subject others to the inquisitorial 
rack, extorting from them all they know, often by 
indirection and artifice, of that which they would 
fain keep from the public ear. and then publishing 
it from the housetops? What right, did we say? 
Rather, who can have patience to endure such a 
WTOngt How mean and contemptible the Occupa- 
tion of such a creature! Eiow society should frown 

upon him (or her), make certain his condemnation, 
and secure for him the sentence of a worse than 
Siberian banishment— eternal isolation from the 
friendship or favor i >f ev< ry peace-loving nature I 

"A lie will travel a league while truth is pulling 
en its boofe." The rose has been faded from many 

a blooming cheek b\ the blight <>f a whispered in- 
sinuation. 

"A whisper woke the air — 
A & 'ft light tone and low, 
Vet barb'd with shame and w 
X« m illicit it only perish there 
r farther 

Ah me I a quick and eager ear 
Caught up the little meaning -<>und! 

Another voice hath breath'd it clear, 
An<l iu n wanders round — 

11 car to lil>. from lip t<> ear — 
Until it reach'd a gentle heart, 

And tiuit. it bn »li 



Tin; World's Peerless Repeater. 37 

h is because backbiting is so deadly in it- eft 
that the busybody is a terror everywhere. "High 
life," as well as humble life, looks with scorn upon 
such a person. It is said that at a great Presidential 
reception in Washington a certain woman was rec- 
ognized by the observers as "the most beautiful 

woman in the room." One remarked that "she 
must be a leader in society, as she had beaut}', high 
position, great wealth, and more wit than many 
women can claim." 

"That is true," was the response, "but neverthe- 
less she is probably the most unpopular woman in 
Washington." 

"Why so?" 

"She is a busybody. People are charmed with 
her the first time they meet her ; they are alarmed 
the second; and the third time they fly from her as 
if she had the plague. 91 

It is characteristic of great talkers that they take 
a hint for everybody but themselves. A notorious 
scandal-monger once listened to a sermon on back- 
biting intended for herself, and straightway applied 
it to an acquaintance addicted only to mild tattling. 

Women are usually not as bad talkers as men. 
They gossip more, but they slander less. In every 
community there is one man who in a single week 



38 The Upward Leading. 

utters five times as many mean things about his 
neighbors as a whole regiment of men ought to utter 
in a lifetime. 

Somewhere I have read of a Tongue Guard So- 
ciety, the members of which pledge themselves to 
give one penny to its treasury ever}- time they speak 
disparagingly of another person. The money thus 
raised is used for the benefit of the poor. People 
who form branches among themselves select their 

own beneficiaries, whom they charitably assist by 
the money accumulated. This novel source o\ reve- 
nue is a species of atonement to counterbalance the 
almost universal failing of speaking spitefully 
against persons. The following laws govern this 
society : 

5TITUTION oi' THE TONGUE GUARD SOCIETY, 
Motto: 

" If aught go< ,( 1 thou canst not 

thy broth end, 

thou then the silent way, 
Lest in i rd thou shouldst offend. 1 

"Article I. The name of this association shall 

be the T< tngue ( muni S« iciety. 

"Article II. Any person may become a member 



Tii 1: \\ « iRLD's 1 'i.i.ki i SS lvi.ri. \ I I J9 

of this society by signing the constitution and con- 
forming t«> its rules. 

" Vrticle 111. We, the undersigned, pledge our- 
selves to endeavor t<> speak no evil of any one. 

"Article IV. Should we, however, through care- 
lessness break cur pledge, we agree for each and 
every offense to forfeit the sum of one cent. The 

money SO forfeited to he placed in a box reserved 

fur this purpose, and to he expended semi-annually 

for charitable objects. 

"Article V. We also agree to use our hest en- 
deavors to increase the membership of the society in 
our town, and to assist in organizing societies in 
other places. 

"Article VI. It is, however, understood that 
when called upon to give our opinion of the char- 
acter of another it shall be done in truth, remember- 
ing in what we say the Scripture injunction, 'Do 
unto others as you would that they should do unto 
you/ " 

Whether organized or not, all persons should 
subscribe to the foregoing rules. Xo human being 
is justified in saying mean things unless it be about 
mean facts, and then only to remedy them. 

But the world's rapid-tire gun, the tongue, does 



40 The Upward Leading. 

not content itself with firing a thousand lies a min- 
ute ; it also indulges in profanity and blasphemy. 
What vice is more gratuitous and absurd than pro- 
fane swearing? Phrenologists profess to find the 
location upon the human skull of all the animal pro- 
pensities, but not one of them can discover the bump 
of profanity. It is not situated in the region of 
the brain; there is no sense in it. Practically the 
swearer is as destitute of reason as an idiot A thief 
steals to augment his unlawful possessions, a glutton 
eats to gratify his depraved appetite, but what does 

a man swear for? He himself can not tell. lie 

knows it is USeleSS, and wicked, too. Every time 
he utter> an oath lie is conscious of his depravity 
and silliness, but he keep- at it. He swears at his 
fello.vs, at his team, at his dog, at an insect if it 
crosses his path, at a Stumbling-block if it Comes in 
his way. He anathematizes the weather, the heat, 
the COld, the rain, the snow, the wind and light. He 
curses himself for his folly, and Others for their wis- 
dom. IK- is loud-voiced betimes, and his bellowing 

blasphemies are the horror of his neighbors and the 
terror of children. 

"His eye is fierce, hi^ Oathfl are loud; 
lie rules and SCOffs the crowd." 



Tii i: \V. )RU)'s 1 *£ERLESS REPEA1 4 i 

Bllt he is a coward. The man who is C0I1 

reserve force equal to any emergency, intellectual, 
physical, or social, does nol give way to swearing. 
He is quiet, nol easil) provoked, nor ([nick to re- 
taliate. The swearer, on the contrary, is superficial, 
impulsive, shallow-brained, and callous-hearted. In 
army life, where men arc free from social restraints, 

there is much swearing. There is more in the cav- 
alry than in the infantry. Men who choose cavalry 
service have the characteristic impulsiveness and 
dash which prompt to unhallowed speech. Cool, cal- 
culating men, like General Grant, can express them- 
selves mightily without an oath. They put them- 
selves, not their hot blood and ill temper, into their 
words. When they speak, others listen ; when they 
command, others obey. They utter the watchwords 
and maxims which become immortal, while the ir- 
reverent speeches of smaller men are forgotten with 
their deeds. Wickedness never made anybody great, 
and ^wearing is wickedness pure and simple. But 
for the third commandment, which prohibits it, men 
would scout it as a token of imbecility. Because it 
is a violation of God's law and a species of impiety, 
showing- malignancy of spirit in the perpetrator, a 
sort of sign that he has not yet learned the lan- 
guage of Canaan, the iniquitous classes tolerate it. 



42 The Upward Leading. 

Many men who have formed the habit would 
break away from it. because of its foolishness, if 
they could. Religion would cure them, but they do 
not want religion. They arc simply persuaded that 
profane language is utterly useless, and would cease 
from it for their own improvement Chrysostom 
1 remedy for such. "Every time." 
said he, "that thou -halt find thyself to have let 
slip an oath, punish thyself for it by missing the 
next meal." Anybody can do that; and if a -wearer 
ally sincere in his desire to reform he will not 
need to go hungry many days to purge himself of 
thi> evil. If ChrySOStom's rule will not work with 
\ou, my -wearing friend, try this: Every time you 

give vent to an oath, pay one dollar to the mission- 
ary cat:- 

A tongue bombardment kindred with swearin. 
that of impure speech. The world is full of bad 

talkei bad talker- because they are bad 

thinkers. They talk what they brood over and en- 
joy. ( others talk bad from habit. They have always 
used more or less impure language, and they s 

to think it would be an indication of weakiu 

break off. ( others talk bad just to make an impres- 
sion, to create a laugh, or Startle .-omebody. They 
have a Stock of hard word.-, rough wit, or vile jokes, 



Tin: World's Peerless Repeater. 43 

which they perpetrate at ever) opportunity, and de 
rive much encouragement from their Foolish efforts 
if they elicit a laugh or make a sensation. Should 
any hearer demur to the Outrage, the fellow has 

friends who will say, " ( ), he meant no harm ; it is his 

way; he is given to outlandish speech sometimes, 
but he is good-hearted/ 1 Tims social offenders are 

Often excused when the}- OUght to he arrested as 

moral assassins, tried at the bar of righteous senti- 
ment, and condemned to banishment from pure soci- 
ety forever. 

The apostle Paul taught the Ephesian brethren 
that they should be so separated from all unclean 
and inordinate practices as to abhor the very men- 
tion of them ; and he further cautioned them against 
all scurrilous and obscene conversation, however 
suggested, all filthy speech and foolish jesting, as 
inconsistent with the Christian character. It was not 
his idea that religious thought and talk should al- 
ways be somber and sedate, but he would have all 
innocent and agreeable mirth expressed in graceful 
and becoming discourse. This is sensible. It meets 
the approval of all pure-minded people as perfectly 
befitting the Christian life and name. 

Conversation is calculated for our comfort and 
benefit. A- our lives flow on we should gain knowl- 



44 Thk Upward LEADING, 

edge and experience, the expression of which will 
prove edifying and agreeable, instructive and pro- 
motive of virtue. In innocently entertaining- each 
Other with diverting narrations it is certainly only 
proper that we should avoid corrupt and corrupting 
thoughts, facts and figures, and seek to make each 
other wis dl as happier, purer as well as more 

joyful. Xo one can calculate the mischiefs which 

follow the abuse of com rial privileges. Nat- 

urally our minds are open and susceptible to sul 

which tend t<> make US worse. Evil thoughts 

I without effort, hut good ideas have to 

\\<»rk against natural depravity and perhaps deep- 

d prejudice. ( observation daily shows how 

much easier it is to debauch a good man and un- 
settle all his right principles, than to reform a had 

one and dear him of notions thoroughly corrupt. 

The former may he accomplished by idle sports and 
sures, hut the latter is business, and requires 

hard application. It is an old remark that "the sal- 
i" a Mnart but undisciplined wit serve to laugh 

men out of their sobriety and religion; nay, even 

an uncommon expression that makes tip in confi- 
dence and surprise what it wants in wit. is often 
able to expose the best and most I and to rec- 

ommend the worst and vilest thin--, to wound a 



Tn i \\ l »ki.d's I Y i.ui.i SS Ki.n. \ i | | 

neighbor's reputation mortally, or to diminish th< 
rencc due to God." Sallies of low wit arc dan- 
us, especially upon such as have not that con- 
is inward purit) and power which turns from 

them in horror and disgust, To the mind that wel- 
comes or even tolerates them they stick like fresh 
pitch, and arc not cleared off by small effort. Imita- 
tion follows the liking of them, and growing cor- 
ruption tOO often follows the imitation. 

But there is a specious method of conveying 
corrupt ideas without using- words in the slightest 
degree unchaste or offensive. The matter and pur- 
pose are obscene, while the manner of speech is en- 
tirely unobjectionable. This habit may be far more 
hurtful in its effects than filthy speech. The more 
artful the disguise the more dangerous the poison. 
Lasciviousness is thus insinuated with more confi- 
dence and security. It engages the fancy by being 
ed up in cleaner robes, and throws the soul off 

uiard by avoiding forms of presentation that 
might give offense. 

Vice has many forms, and so has the expression 
of it. Vicious minds can unfold their debasing spirit 
and purposes in cunning ways. Those who would 
keep themselves pure must he on their guard to re- 
sist the "first abhorred approach of ill," and keep 



46 The Upward Leading, 

their natures so sensitive to evil designs as "the 
slightest touch of sin to feel." Herein lies their 
safety. 

Another reprehensible lingual discharge is that 
of falsifying. David said, in his haste, all men are 
liars. Thank God that in his haste he said it, else 
he himself had lied. All men are not liars. There 
are men who would SOOner their tongues should 
cleave to the roofs of their mouths than to Utter 

a deliberate falsehood. 

Yet lying is 1 anon. It was so in days 

old. Jeremiah sighed for a lodging place in the 

wilderness that he might escape the tongues of 

treacherous men. "They hend their tongues like 
their how for lies," he cried; "they are not valiant 
tor the truth upon the earth; they proceed from evil 
to evil ; every neighbor will walk with -landers; they 
have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary 
themselves to commit iniquity/ 1 

Lying lead- to Other iniquities. Paul speaks ^\ 

those who depart from the faith as speaking lies in 
hypocrisy. The liar is a hypocrite. He is a false 
pretender to virtue or piety. Like the hypocrite, his 
hope shall perish. Idle Psalmist says that "he that 
speaketh lie- -hall perish." The Revelator declai 

that "all liars -hall haw their part in the lake which 



Tn i: \v» >rld's Peerless Repea i br. -\7 

burnetii with fire." Thej deserve it. They are unfit 
for heaven. The) are unfit for good soci arth. 

"The Lord hates a liar." So do you. Everybody 
does. Liars hate each other. Solomon affirmed 
that "a lying tongue hateth those thai are afflicted 
by it." This is the only redeeming quality in a liar; 
he has sense enough to despise others like himself. 

Liars will steal. Under the Mosaic economy 
lying was prohibited in the same category with 
dealing falsely and with stealing'. 

Liars can not be trusted in any respect. They 
will perjure themselves for the love of it. "A faith- 
ful witness will not lie ; but a false witness will 
utter lies." 

"No lie is of the truth/' 

Xo lie is of the light. 

Xo lie is of the pure. 

Xo lie is abiding. 

"The mouth of them that speak lies shall be 
stopped." "The lip of truth shall be established 
forever; but a lying tongue is 'hut for a moment." 

Xext to lying is bloz^'iu^. Blowhards are the 
pests of society. 

There is the political blowhanl. He always has 
the best of the argument because he can bellow the 
loudest and hold out the longest. His part}- is 



48 Tin-; Upward Leading. 

THE party, his man is THE man, and all others 
are shams and frauds. 

There is the commercial blowhard. Perhaps he 
is a real-estate speculator, a patent-right man, or 
a shoddy auctioneer. Xo matter what, lie can talk 
you deaf. He can talk you poor, lie can drive 
you insane. 

And there is the doctrinal blowhard. He has an 
ism. He is a stickler for tenets. He is generally 
a literalist The letter killeth, so does he. lie can 
argue you to death, lie can bury you under his 

voluble harangues beyond the hope of a verbal resur- 
rect* 'ii. 

Next tO blowing is grumbling, A grumbler is 

the quintess [ acidity, the concentration of all 

that is disagreable. It is an iniquity for him to 

live, — I mean the constitutional, habitual, abandoned 
grumbler. Such a fellow b unfit to live, 

because he makes the lives of others a burden. In 

the ministry, grumblers are the fellows who are 
always at the \ ppointment In the pews they 

are ne\ ;ied with the pastor and the plans of 

the Church. At boarding-schools tiny are alwa 

hungry for beef when pork IS Served; and for pork 
when 1 At home they are dissatisfied 

because they are at home; and awav from home they 



Tin-: World's Peerless Repeater, 49 

arc home-sick because they arc away. The things 
that arc not and can not be arc the only things that 

WOUld please them. They arc the torment of their 
kindred, the nuisances of society, the terror of the 

Church, and the humbugs of the world. 

Why can we not all thank the Lord that it is 
as Well with US as it is, improve whatever is our lot 
with smiles and sunshine, and go forward in the 
Strength of 1 Km who has favored us with such bless- 
as only our base ingratitude leads us to despise? 

"Let us gather up the sunbeam 

Laying all along our path ; 
Let us keep the wheat and roses. 

Casting out the thorns and chaff; 
Let us find our sweetest comforts 

In the blessings of to-day, 
With a patient hand removing 

All the briers from the way." 

Next to grumbling is scolding. This may be 
necessary sometimes, but rarely so. The scolding 

habit is certainly harmful. 

"Speak gently ; it were better far 
To rule by love than fear. 
Speak gently; let not harsh words mar 
The good you might do here." 

"A soft answer turneth away wrath." If frown- 
ing speech were changed to smiling counsels, earth's 
4 



50 The Upward Leading. 

gloom would be dissipated and heaven's sunshine 
would pour in. Substitute sweetness of speech for 
useless scolding, and many a darkened home would 
be radiant with joy. If we all realized that we are 
speaking, as in a telephone, into the ear of God, 
we would be more careful to "season our conver- 
sation as with salt." 

There are Other sins of the tongue, such as false 

teaching and uncharitable judgments. Beware ! 

Never teach an untruth. Never give an unim- 
portant truth the place of an essential truth. Be 
charitable. Judge not Weigh motives, 

"Ala> tor the rarity 
Of Christian charity 

Under the sun !" 
Man is responsible for every word he speaks. 

God has given us tWO ev« with, two ears to 

hear with, a big brain to think with, but only a little 
tongue to talk with. Learn to hold that tongue. 

Always guard it. Never USe it except in innocent 
and worthv service. 



III. 

THE TRUTH THAT O WQUERS. 

"lie shewed himself alive after his passion by many 

infallilue proofs." — Acts l, 3. 

Tin-; truth of the resurrection of Jesus is the 
corner-stone of the Christian system. "If Christ be 
not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith 

50 vain." Happily we are not left without satis- 
factory evidence. Jesus lived on this earth. He was 
crucified under Pontius Pilate. He rose again from 
the dead, and compelled the belief of it by "many 
infallible proofs." 

The existence of Jesus Christ on earth is con- 
ceded by skeptics. 

John Stuart Mill, while denying the Divinity of 

is, grants the originality of His life and character 
as proof of their historical truth. "Who among the 
disciples of Jesus," inquires he, "or among their 
proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings 
ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining the life and char- 

5i 



52 The Upward Leading. 

acter revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the 
fishermen of Galilee, and as certainly not St. Paul." 
M. Renan, the accomplished French skeptic, 
while holding to the legendary theory as to many 
facts in Christ's life, allows the authenticity of St. 
Matthew's Gospel, grants that Matthew was an eye- 
witness and an car-witness of what he records 
at least had direct means of knowing the truth of it. 
He makes these COl IS on the internal credi- 

bility of the narrative, and OB the authority of Tapias, 
who wrote early in th< I century, and of a 

chain of succeeding writer-, who quote from the 

pel, Or refer tO it. Of the 971 verses in Mat- 
thew' 1. Renan refer- to 701 ^\ them as giving 
an accurate account of the sayings or doings of our 

Lord. 

The groundwork of the Gospel story is well es- 
tablished by nun ecular writers of early date. 

.Mara the Syrian, in writing to his son Serapion, 

A. I). 74, r what benefit did the Athenians 

obtain by putting Socrates to death, or the Jews by 
the murder of their wise King? Socrates did not 
die because of Plato, nor yet the wise King because 

of the new laws which lie enacted." 

Tacitus, the Roman historian, born A. D. 55, in 
speaking of the Christians whom Nero had slaugh- 



Tin: Tki in Tn.\ i ('< >NQ1 i:ks. 53 

tered, says: "The author of that name was Christ, 

who in the reign of Tiberius, was put to death 

criminal, under the procurator Pontius Pilate/ 1 
Speaking d the foregoing testimony, the historian 

Gibbon says that "the most skeptical criticism is 

obliged to respect its truth." 

voluminous is the profane testimony to the 
fact oi Christ's life and death that, had the New 
anient never heen written, these facts would re- 
main clearly established. It is evident that Jesus 
walked this earth in the form and fashion of a man, 
and thai at about the age of thirty-three He was put 
to death. 

Did Jesus rise again from the dead? 

It is plain that if nothing extraordinary occurred 
subsequently to the death of Jesus, the religion He 
established would speedily have come to an end. 
Xo one else appeared on the scene to take up His 
work where He laid it down. The disciples them- 
selves centered all their hope in the idea that Jesus 
"was He who should have redeemed Israel." They 
would have followed no other leader had a capable 
one appeared. And they would never have preached 
Christianity had Jesus remained dead. Something 
wonderful happened or the movement would have 
perished. What was that "something ?'' No small 



54 The Upward Leading. 

occurrence would have sufficed. Xo uncertain an- 
nouncement would have stood the rigorous test. 
The predictions respecting Jesus were universally 
known, and had excited bitter enmity among unbe- 
lievers. Any attempt at imposition, any trick or 
fraud or lie on the part of the disciples, would have 
resulted in the death of the disciples and in the ex- 
tinction of Christianity. 

What, then, kept the movement alive? Hist 
xibes it> life tO the belief that Jesus had risen 
from the dead. Whether a fact or a delusion, it is 
evident that this belief instantly sprang up. and that 

it held together, as by magnetic attraction, the ori 

inal community which Jesus had founded. 

Glance at the circumstances. The body of JV 

was thi$8ed from the sepulcher, and the fact created 
a natural BensatJOIL What became of that body? 
The dil lid not steal it, for Roman soldiers 

had it in charge. They had no motive to steal it, 
for they COUld neither cnceal it nor make any I1SC 
of it. The authorities did not do away with it, for 
it was to their interest to keep it secure in the tomb. 
The soldiers did not disturb it, for they were in the 
pay of a prejudiced government and under blood 
penalties. What became of that body? There is no 
theory which meets all the demands of the situation 



Tin TRU1 11 Thai CONQUEB 55 

save the truthful one thai J< sua rose again from the 
dead. M ] have power to lay down my life, and I 
have power to take it again." This power He 
exercised He returned to the lifeless clay, arose in 
full vigor, laid aside the grave clothes, rolled back 

the stone from the door, and stepped out. 

The soldiers beheld Him, and were frightened 
nearly to death. Before they could rally themselves 
sufficiently to give an alarm Jesus was beyond their 
reach. The risen Christ then revivified the seem- 
ingly lost cause. Xo other event could have given 
to Christianity its instant power and imperishable 
vitality. 

Modern skeptics concede that the disciples were 
sincere in their belief that they had seen their Master 
alive after His crucifixion. Renan admits that with- 
out this belief they would not have incurred the 
labors, perils, and sufferings incident to the found- 
ing of the Christian Church. Strauss affirms that 
without faith in the resurrection no Christian com- 
munity could have been formed. "There can be no 
doubt," he says, "that the apostle Paul had heard 
from Peter, James, and others that Jesus had ap- 
peared to them, and that all these persons and the 
five hundred brethren were fully convinced that they 
had seen Jesus living, who had been dead." Baur 



56 The Upward Leading. 

also says that "history must hold fast to this fact 
that, for the faith of the disciples, the resurrection 
of Jesus was a certain and immovable truth, and that 
it is only in this faith that Christianity found a 
solid basis for its whole historical development." 

There is another fact which renders any subse- 
quent error <>r deception an impossibility. The ac- 
count of Christ's resurrection was published and 
circulated while many of the witnesses to it were 
yet alive. No one denied these reports. The evi- 
dence was >uch that neither Jew nor pagan dared to 
call it in question. 

More than this, the published truth took hold of 
the world. The Churches became as powerful as an 
unquestionable miracle could make them. Thou- 
sands of sinners were saved, and the cause extended 
from Jerusalem into other cities and into other lands. 
tnong the distinguished com Christianity 

Saul of . and the proofs of the resurrec- 

tion which he has given tO the world are irrefutable. 
All the eminent unbelievers of modern Kurope 

allow that the Pauline Epistles to the Galatians, Ro- 
mans, and Corinthians are the apostle's own writ" 
ingSj and these documents carry us back to within 
twenty-eight years of the crucifixion. Paul had 
been a Christian preacher twenty years when he 



Tm: Truth Thai i 57 

penned these Epistles, and his historical recollections 
must have covered a space of twenty years prior to 
that time, so that his declarations have a basis in 
conversations with multitudes who had seen Christ 

and had listened to His teachings. In Paul's Kpis- 

tles, therefore, we have a contemporaneous record 
o\ infinite value. And those Epistles teach us that 
their accomplished author had been a sworn oppo- 
nent of the Christian faith, and was won over to it 

only by evidence he simply could not withstand. It 
was the truth of the resurrection that conquered him, 
and it was this truth which he made the paramount 
theme of his Epistles. "We are found false wit- 
nesses of God,'' cried this redeemed persecutor, ' k if 
Christ be not risen." "We also believe," he cried 
again, "and therefore we speak, knowing that He 
which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also 
by Jesus." To him the doctrine of the resurrection 
was as sure a thine;' as the fact of his own existence. 
Peter and James also give manifold testimony 
to the truth of the resurrection. All the early Chris- 
tians entered into the faith, and many of them who 
became authors left testimonies which coincide with 
those of the canonical Gospels, and constitute a solid 
parallel foundation for the faith of the Christian 
world. Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and many 



58 The Upward Leading. 

more, all declare in language unmistakable that the 
same Jesus who had died rose again, and, after giv- 
ing infallible proofs of His identity, founded His 
Church anew, and then ascended into heaven. Ref- 
erences to New Testament teachings are SO abundant 
in the writings of the fathers that quite an accurate 
life of JesUS could be put together from this source 

tie. 

Even the early adversaries of Christianity indi- 
rectly confirm the truth which they attacked. Dod- 
drid - that "an abridgment of the history of 

Christ may be found in f the Epicurean 

philosophers, who made the first written attack upon 
Christian teaching, about A. D, [8 >, and whose work- 
was fully answered by the Creek father, Origen, 
about seventy years later. No doubt the same would 
the writings of Porphyry had they not 

perished, as the quotations from them in the Chris- 
tian father.- abundant'. So futile and absurd 
were all the formidable early ; OH the authen- 
ticity of the Scriptures and the validity of Christian 

doctrine that after the conversion of Constantine, 
A. D. 312, these attacks practically ceased, and oppo- 
sition to Cospel truth became rare and feeble until 

the English Deists of the seventeenth century arose, 
followed by the infidels of the eighteenth century, 



Tin: Tki i i i Tii \ i 59 

and the rationalists and philosophical skeptics oi the 
nineteenth. And despite all these later enemies, the 
credentials of Christianity still live, and Christian 
truth itself is a conquering power in the world. 

"He shewed Himself alive." lie is alive to-day, 
spiritually and gloriously alive. His cause is alive. 
His worship is alive. There has not been a break in 
His adoration and service for nearly two thousand 
years. He is leading His people on. He is inspiring 
them to conquest. He will overcome His foes. He 
will save mankind. He will conquer the nations. 
He will rule in love. "He shall not fail nor be dis- 
couraged till He hath set judgment in the earth." 
Jesus appears to each of us. Our eyes see Him not. 
Our ears hear Him not. We can not put our fingers 
in the print of the nails. But our hearts feel His 
presence, and beat in loving sympathy with His. 



IV. 
A NUT FOR DESPISERS TO CRACK. 

"Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, 

that through tins Man is preached unto you the 
eness of sins; and by Him all thai 
t justified from all things, from which ye could 
justified by the law of Moses. Beware there- 
fore, lest that come upon you which is spoben of 
in the pro pilots. He I: I WOth 

der and perish: for I work a work in your dc 

shall in no U tlunt^h 

a man declare it unto you." — ACTS XIII, 38-4I. 

When St. Paul uttered tl rds, he had for 

ten years been a Christian, and for twelve years had 

dered the evidence supporting the truth of 
Chri n. 

He L8 now at Antioch, where the disciples were 
first called Christians, and, in a sermon of wonder- 
ful power, is proclaiming Jesus as the Savior of men, 

emonstrated by His resurrection from the dead. 

"Through this Man," h< :"« >r-ivcness of sin is 

60 



A Nut rt)H Dbspisers ro Cra< 

being realized by all that believe, and the wonder 
work of the ages is being wrought through Him. 

He affirms that some will despise these things, even 

while they are unable to account for them, and will 
perish in their very presence because of unbelief. 
He intimates that DO amount of evidence IS sufficient 

ive a certain class of people from the doom of 
disbelief. 

"Though a man declare it unto you." That word 
"declare" is from the Latin clants, clear, bright, free 
from obscurity, and is used in the same sense as 
when the Psalmist said, "The heavens declare the 
glory of God," they furnish their own evidence, 
embody it in their brightness, and flame it forth in 
unconcealable splendor. 

These moral miracles of a gospel preached in all 
the world through Christ, and the manifest result 
of believers justified and saved, may be "declared" 
with all the logic and eloquence and vehemence of 
which a trained scholar, like Paul, is capable, and 

some will despise them as the Jews did the other 
miracles of Christ, and close their eyes to all current 
events which prove the presence of God among men. 

To a mind enlightened by the Spirit, the deliver- 
ance of a soul from the sense of guilt is as contrary 
to the laws of nature, and to any human experience 



62 The Upward Leading. 

anterior to Jesus., as if, at the word of God, a moun- 
tain should rise out of a plain or an island from the 
depth of the sea. And yet this deliverance is occur- 
ring; every day, and has been for nineteen hundred 

ars. Xo one dreamed of preaching such a doctrine 
until God revealed it and J .led it by His 

death. iied, millions have 

Jted it and f<»tind it SO true that they have likev 

.led it by their death. This doctrine so unique in 
tlie world could never have been fully intro- 

duced by any event less momentous and convincing 
than the appearand g men. 

- that there are three things in 

Story which seem incredible, and, if judged by 

human standards, are incr- Ssible, viz.: 

That Christ n i the dead and ascended into 

heaven: that the world should have believed SO in- 
credible a thing : and that this uni\ lief should 

have been brought about bj the preaching of a few 

illit md nniniluential fishermen. Yd th- 

three thing i human faith and in 

. If this result ha- been achieved through 
the persuasive power Of a real resurrection, then it 
IS a Divine work. If achieved without that power, 
then it is incumbent upon the d< - to account 

for it, which as vet thev have sadly failed to do. 



is to Crack, 

This bright, well-educated, and richly-experi- 
I Cilician says that forgiveness i 4 sins is through 

faith in a risen Christ. 1 >< >es he In- ? [s he deceived ? 

Should he he despised? Or ought the d 
themselves to be despised? It is a question of 

as well as faith. Forgiveness of sin is now being 
preached. Believers are now testifying that through 

this doctrine they are being justified. Shall we ac- 
cept their testimony, or shall we scoff at it? 

Perhaps it will help us to go back of their testi- 
mony, back of their faith, back of the preaching of 
iveness, and back of the story of the resur- 
rection. 

I will ask, Is Jesus Himself a real personage? 
Did ''this Man" live and labor among men? Is the 
Christ of Christianity a verity, or is He a myth? 

This is the fundamental question. Sometimes 
sk : Was water ever turned into wine? Was 
Lazarus raised from the dead? Was the Red Sea 
ever divided? Did the whale swallow Jonah? Did 
iron ever swim? But these are not primary ques- 
The primary question is, Can we depend 
upon the Christ of history and of current belief as an 
actual personage? This question settled, all the 
other- take care of themselves. 

There is not one miracle recorded in the New 



64 The Upward LEADING. 

Testament which does not point back to Christ. 
There is not one recorded in the Old Testament 
which does not point forward to Him. lie is the 
central factor in all miracles. He is greater than 
any miracle. He is greater even than the miracle 
of His *i« Therefore, given an actual 

Christ such as the world knows, and belief in the 
supernatural and in the spiritual 1 as easy as 

breathii If. I Knee the dulous man is 

not he \\l i s that s, but he who 

Christ to be a verity, and yet denies that 
He : 

I f Christ is a verifr God mani- 

t in th( :le than \\;f 

turned into wine <»r a human >pirit returned tO its 
hoUSC of clay. 

Thus it happens that a miracle which, standing 
1>\ incredible, becomes perfectly 

believable wha ted with Christ. .\> Principal 

"If the & « of ( •■ 'd he really 
in the held, it is not strange that higher than mortal 
weapons should gather around Him/ 1 It is at this 
int that many intelligent skeptics have been res- 
cued from the peril of the 

'Jlie late Dr. Kdwards A. Park in his young man- 
hood became very skeptical as to the truth of Bible 



A XlT I'oK 1 I 65 

miracles. He could not gainsay the evidence of 
their truth, nor yet accept them as verities. "'I re- 
mained/ 1 he says, "for a long time in painful 

. But when I reflected <>n tin- vicarious atone- 
ment made by our Lord, I was so impressed by its 
grandeur that miracles in favor of it appeared to be 

nable. There seemed to be a propriety that 

should rise from the grave. Indeed, there 
seemed to be an impropriety that He should not 
I lis atonement is so noble, and speaks so 
directly to the heart, and is so benign in its influence 
on man. that it removes the antecedent improbability 
against the miracle of His resurrection. It creates 
a probability in favor of that miracle. It justifies 
our implicit faith in the testimony which favors it. 
We fully believe that Christ rose from the dead. 
Now, this is the most stupendous miracle recorded 
in the Bible. If we believe the greater, we can easily 
believe the smaller." And this greater miracle is 
supported, not only by the vast array of evidence 
which accompanied it, but by living, growing evi- 
dence as infallible as any which ever supported an 
earthly truth. 

There are four hundred millions of people in the 
world to-day who by language and conduct, declare 
their belief in the resurrection of Christ and in the 

5 



66 Tin: Upward Leading. 

actuality of forgiveness through Him. They do it 

by keeping His Sabbath, by engaging in His wor- 
ship, and by the word of testimony. They are not all 
experienced Christians, but those of them that are 
experienced are, as a result, the more confident, firm, 

I restful. Now, this state of restfulness is evi- 
dence <>f a satisfied mind. President Porter never 

ited a more emphatic truth than when he said. 

"The heart can neither love nor trust what the head 

to he untrue/ 1 The love and trust re- 

sed in Christ 'hat His redemption stands the 

' scrutiny and the fondest antici] I faith. 

Even those who haw not by personal experience 

proved Christianity to he a transforming power in 

their own lives, have, 1 rving its superior 

element in human . been 

ained to acknowledge it- marvelous character 

and its benign influence anion. Tints the late 

Hon. John J. [ngalls, whom no one ever charged 

with i us zealj in an article widely 

published, stated that, though other religions are 

older than Christianity, "none- have exerted such an 
immense influence u] ment, society, and 

civilization/ 1 ( m" Jesus he -aid that "million- to-day 

would rather die than surrender their faith in Ilim." 
What? "Rather die?" All that a man hath will 



A Nut a >h i h spisers ro Crack, 67 

he ^i\'c for his life, but all thai a man is by faitli ill 

Christ will he cling to and defend though ii 
1 ii hi his life. 

Thousands of native Christians in China, and 
hundreds of thousands in Armenia, all resolutely 

dying rather than tO surrender their faith in Christ, 

are the incontestable proofs of our generation that 

the Kansas statesman told the truth. 

But there are witnesses all around us. By faith 

the}' have come into an experience as real to them 

nsciousness, and far more precious than life. 

There are persons before me who would die for 

Christ 

Now, such an experience is more wonderful than 
a physical miracle. Just think of the power to say 
in truth: "I was dead, and I live; I was blind, and 
: I was a slave, and I am free; I was an enemy 
of Cod, and I love Him; the Bible, prayer, and 
Christian society were once repugnant to my taste, 
while now they are the source of my highest joy. 
Id a miracle! And if God is able to work that 
one, there are none of which He is not capable." 

You may tell me there arc hypocrites in the 
world, men who are given to telling lies concerning 
their experience. Tt matters not. If, since Jesus 
died, there has been one genuine Christian among 



68 Tin: Upward Leading. 

all the professors of religion, one soul actually re- 
deemed by Christ's blood, it follows that, in spite 
of hypocrite, the supernatural has occurred, that 
God does work special changes in the souls of men. 
Despist this truth a- you may; reject it if you 
will ; nevertheless you can ide the force of the 

fact that One saved SOUl proves God to he immanent 

in the lives <»f men, and that through Christian pro- 

He is in our day working a work as marvel- 
ous as any in history. And the fact of this One saved 

il is a sort of truth which demonstrates itself, 
am is a power that can be tested, and so is elec- 
tricity. Christ is also a power just as unmistakably 

manifest in human life. Indeed, steam and electric- 
ity have n<>t cat great Changes in mate-rial life 

and in methods of business a- Christianity has 

Used in moral life and in modes of worship. 

Wherever this religion has gone, the miracle of an 
awakened people has followed Wherever it has not 

has remained stagnant Christian 
pr< | . therefore, the proof of Christ as a living 

and uplifting po\\ i 

Here, then, are stubborn facts, not theories, con- 
fronting the rs. 

i. Christianity is here. It is established. It is 
at work. It is the greatest p n earth. It 



A Nut poh Despisers ro Ca u 6g 

the most purifying and at the same time the most 

energizing influence the world h known, tts 

:\ can not be eradicated nor its power destn 

2« Christianity came here somewhow. The G 

pels were written by somebody. The Christ-life was 

either lived or invented. It lived, it is divine, if 
not lived, the invention is more incredible than a 
miracle. 

( Ordinary reason discerns that Christianity 
must have had its origin in supernatural sourc 

(a) Bad men would not have invented a system 
which condemns themselves. 

(b) Good men would not tell lies about the 
origin of any system, ascribing their own work to 
God. 

(c) All men concede that the fruits of Chris- 
tianity are more benign and uplifting than those of 
other religions. "By their fruits ye shall know 
them." 

But there are those who fancy that Christianity 
is waning, and that ultimately its power will pass 
away. Poor souls ! Do they not see that Christian 
civilization is sweeping forward as never before? 
Christian nations are ruling the world. Christian 
power is penetrating Asia, stirring Japan, controlling 
.Africa, and attracting attention everywhere. Chris- 



jo Tin- Upward Leading. 

tian light is shining through the darkness of unbelief 
in all lands, and giving more comfort to dying men 
than all other religions combined. 

y what you will, it is Christian faith that 
blesses the world. "The great motive forces of earth 

arc its Christian beliefs." These have removed 

mountains of difficulty from the path of progr 
and crowned the work of man with the blessings of 

:. Every great achievement since Noah built the 

ark has been the fruit of faith, and not oi unbelief. 

And what the world most need- tO-day is a i: 

lent championship of this truth. "Ye are my 

wib . Td." A witness is the m 

important person in any court. You can dispense 

with a lawyer, a judge, or a jury, hut you can not 

se with wit Evid< i ints. Paul 

1 that Jesus had made him "a minister and a wit- 
ness/ 1 and Ik- mv I in his preaching t«> push 
his testimony t<> the front It was "witnessing both 

-mall and great" that made his ministry so ef- 

There in rdi y which is 
irresistible. I Jod 1 1 i be in it. J. Hud- 
son Taylor, of the China Inland Mission, tdls of a 

native convert, a beautiful gir] of her race, who 



A Nut k>b I ] 71 

alone, in a community of the despisers of everything 
foreign, had accepted the truth and was called to 
meet her God. "Throw open the doors/ 1 said she. 
"Call the people in, that they may learn how a Chris- 
tian can die." None of them bad ever witnessed a 
Christian death scene, and they were amazed at her 
calm and beautiful departure. J [er last exclamation, 
"Jesus is coming, Jesus is coming!" led to many 
conversions, her own relatives being among the 
number. 

No one can measure the possible influence of a 
word for Christ. How noble it was in our own 
American Admiral Watson, when in Tokio a few 
wars ago, that be should go with his staff direct 
from a reception by the Mikado to a special meet- 

of the Tokio Young Men's Christian Associ- 
ation, and there, after speaking long and eloquently 
to the three hundred young Japanese of the wonder- 
ful strides of their nation since his first visit, he 
should add: "I am an old man. I have had many 
pleasures. I have attained the highest place possible 
for me to attain in the navy of my country ; but I 
wish to testify before you that it is my hope in Jesus 
Christ my Savior which I prize above all else, and 
which sustains me in all I do." His words produced 



72 The Upward Leading. 

a profound impression, and may have had their influ- 
ence on the heroic conduct of many a Japanese in 
their brave struggle with the Russians. 

And let me give another instance of what a word 
fitly spoken may do. An obscure Highlander boy, 
whose parents had taught him to revere Cod, became 

a marine on board a British man-of-war. A battle 

The deck is swept by a tremendous broadside 

from the enemy. 'IT. in, James Ilaldane, a 

•fane man, l >rd ipany Ofl deck to 

take the pL the dead. At sight of the mangled 

remains of their tlie marines became 

panic-stricken and ungovernable. The captain ra 

at them blasphemously, and wishes them all in hell. 

T] is Highlander, a man now full 

■wn, and touching his hat. »; s, "Captain, I be- 
lieve Cod i r; if 1 1< hear j, what will 

of US?" When the battle was Over, Captain 
Halda; n the WOrds of the hrave marine, 

jted in the claims of religion, surren- 
dered his heart to God, became i her of the 
jpd and pastor of a Church in Edinburgh. 
Through his instrumentality his brother, Robert I [al- 
dane, was brought to became a decided 

Christian, settled in Geneva, StUTtd up Prolc^tantisn 



\ \i i ; ■. IB D RS TO < 'i' wk. 73 

there, and became the means of leading a large num- 
ber of t! il students into the light, among the 
number being J. II. Merle D'Aubigne, author of 
the immortal History of the Reformation, and the 
father of Rev. Dr, D'Aubigne, whose recent visit 
to the United States served to create new interest in 
the evangelical religion of France. "Behold how 
great a matter a little fire kindlethl" One spark 
from the luminous soul of that poor I [ighlander, well 
ed in the heart of his unpretending boy, becomes 
the flame that enkindles a famous city and shines in 
historic splendor around the world. 

Xo man loses anything worth retaining by rever- 
ing God and making that reverence known. 

The late Captain Philip, of the battle-ship Texas, 
I brave commander, and never more brave than 
when in the battle with Cervera, amid the roar of 
cannon, he hushed the yells of his exultant seamen at 
sight of their own effective shooting by saying, 
"Don't cheer, boys ; the poor devils are dying." 
And again, when the battle was over, and Spain's 
vaunted armada lay strewn in helpless hulks on 
Cuba's shore, he reverently lifted his hat, and, rais- 
ing his eyes toward heaven, exclaimed, "I wish to 
acknowledge my faith in Cod the Father Almighty." 



74 Tin: Upward Leading, 

Happy the man who has a faith to acknowledge, 
and courage enough to make the acknowledgment 
when and where it will do some good. 

He who fears to testify to the Divinity of the 

Christian religion betrays his incapacity to seize upon 
impressive facts and make them a part of his life 
force. lie who is without the fact of a redeemed. 
natUT StitUte of the most energizing and refin- 

Kperience that can come to mortals on this side 

ate of Paradise. 



DEATH, UKE. PEACE. 

"To be carnally minded is death ; but to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace/' — Rom. viii, 6. 

The Bible is remarkable for the contrasts it pre- 
sents. "What shall a man be profited if he gain the 
whole world, and lose his own soul? ,, "He that 
savetfa his life shall lose it." And here is the text 
nting the striking results of carnality and those 
of spirituality. 

I. What is it to be carnally minded? Two ex- 

sions, oft repeated in this chapter, answer the 
ion: i. To walk after the flesh; and, 2. To be 
under the law of sin. 

To "walk after the flesh'' does not always imply 
carnal acts, but it does imply a mental and moral 
condition in which bodily sensibilities and worldly 
actualities are chiefly sought and enjoyed. "They 
that arc after the flesh do mind, or relish, the things 
of the flesh. 1 ' Carnality and spirituality are oppo- 
sites, so that they who are in the one condition can 

75 



76 The Upward LEADING. 

not be in the other. "The}- that are in the flesh can 
not please God," but "as many as are led by the 
Spirit of God, they arc the sons of God/' The word 
'■carnal" is never used to des the children of 

God, and the word "spiritual" is never applied to the 
unregenerate. The spiritual man is not the carnal, 

even though there remain in him some traces of the 
carnal mind; nor IS the carnal man the spiritual, 

even though there he in him some aspirations after 
holiness. The carnal mind has a general trend 
toward carnality, fleshliness, worldliness, and a gen- 
eral inaptitude or disrelish for spiritual things, The 

carnal mind in its best and wisest thoughts is enmity 

ainst God, because it is not subject to the law 

I. It has made no surrender, has n<>t been 
purged, renovated, spiritualized. It is in its fallen 

rupt and rel The law is holy, 

but the carnal man is sold under sin. 

I I. N( • rtics i >f a carnal mind. 
I. Such a mind is the -lave and dm I the 

body in res] 1 things. Like the Israel- 

ites in Egypt it is made perpetually to moil in day. 
Merchandise, trades and manufactures, tillage and 
husbandry, are all employed for the gratification of 
the body, n means t<> a higher end. We know- 

that the necessities of our bodies require much at- 



D \th. [*IPBj PEACB. 77 

tention, and thai legitimate pleasures arc- allowed to 
but the carnal man makes these necessities and 
indulj supreme. He forces his soul to forget 

itself and its proper business In this world, to attend 
to the inordinate cravings and lusts of the flesh after 
the perishable and temporal. I [e spends all his time 
and choicest pains upon earthly things, and engages 
his affections to them. 

2. The carnal mind is under the sway of evil 
propensities. A carnal person, when provoked, will 
always consult with his lower nature. For an in- 
jur}, real or imaginary, he seeks revenge. Ask' 
him why, and he will tell you that "flesh and blood 
can not endure this wrong." Exactly so. He is 
in the carnal frame. Saul was in this condition when 
pursuing David, and so intense was his bitterness 
that he killed himself in the vain and mad pursuit, 
simply to end his own agony. Proud flesh and blood 
are the cause of revenge. The carnal mind will not 
yield. "By pride cometh contention and strife/' 
whereas humility would keep peace. 

Pliny tells of two ill-natured goats meeting upon 
a narrow bridge over a deep chasm. Neither could 
pass the other, and for a moment they began to fight. 
Perceiving their danger, however, one of them lay 
down and allowed the other to walk over him, and 



78 Tin; Upward Leading, 

both were saved. The example of these brute beasts 
teaches us that it is better to let persons trample upon 
us sometimes than, by squabbling and discord, to 
endanger the destruction of both ourselves and 
ethers. A man who is meditating revenge can not 
go to God and say as Christ hath taught him, "For- 
give us our ti\ we forgive those who 

tresp If he uses this petition with 

his heart full of revenge, he does no more than to 
imprecate a curse upon himself. Such a man is 
carnal, sold under sin. The wise man teaches us 
that it is the glory of a man to pass by an injury, but 

the revengeful person has never learned this wisdom. 

A victor}- of that variety is t<> him inglorious defeat 

me who are thus carnal can far a- to say 

"1 :' " but they usually add, "I can never 

:." Tl unlike the one who remar' 

Cyprian that though he had an excellent memory 
for all things else, he could never remember an in- 
jury. The>e vengeful people can never forget an 
injury. They can forget a sermon or a kindm 

an accommodation, but they can remember an injury 
or a slight for forty years. If God should forgive 

our sins, but not [ hem, what would become of 

US? It is He that says, "Your sins and iniquities 
will I remember no more." 



D \iu. 1 .1 n . I Y.wi.. 79 

3, The carnal mind Consults with carnal natures 

in respeel to Divine things. Man} are captivated 
with the specious reasonings of skeptics, the liter- 
ature which ignores salvation, and the sophistical 

arguments of rationalistic philosophy. Yet Paul 
warns against this tendency, "lest any man should 
beguile you with enticing words/ 1 and his practice 

was in accord with his teaching: "I came not with 
excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto 
you the testimony of God. For I determined not to 
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified." 

Carnal wisdom assumes various forms, some- 
times rejecting the Gospel because of its simplicity, 
and again because of its mystery. The Jews rejected 
it because its doctrines opposed theirs, and the 
Greeks rejected it because it is so plain that a fool 
can understand it. Paul rose above them both, and 
said. ''We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a 
stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, 
but unto them which are called, both Jews and 
Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of 
God." 

4. The carnal mind studies its own inclinations 
in respect to duty. Tt has sense in the room of faith, 
and self in the place of God. It says, "Except I see 



So Tin: Upward Leading. 

signs and wonders I will not believe." It demands 
as a condition of faith that one appear from the dead. 
It forgets that Moses, the prophets, and the apostles 
are a sufficient ground of confidenc 

us are the last to take upon themselves 
the yoke of Christ. They shrink from self-denial, 
and scoff at solemn warnings. Finding within them- 
selves evil d< ey would gratify, they hate the 

purity of the Gospel which forbids. 

". The carnal mind is often given over to deeds 

of hopel< b ss. This is the extreme of car- 

nality. It will violate any or every one of the c 
mandments if it can vade the penalty 

of human law. State prison or the whip- 

ping-post or the gallows far more than the pain- of 

hell, dimply b carnal, fleshly, worldly. Its 

spiritual appreh< nee is 

hardened. The will is blind t<> the stern require- 
ments of tl I law. Hence "to be carnally 
minded is DEATH." 

III. Carnality is death, — 

i. To right reason. God says, "Come now, let 

n together." The carnal mind will not re- 
spond. It r rider. It prefers undis- 
turbed self-sufficiency. 

2. To pure pleasure. I do not say that the car- 



D mil I ,i if.. I v. ' 

nail}- minded have no pleasures. It were folly to do 
Yet their pleasures usually have the rust of 
decay or the taint of sin upon them, and the exult- 
ing joys of genuine religious experience are to them 

insipid, fanatical, or meaningless. 

3, To high aspirations. The carnal mind gropes 

in the dust. Its thoughts run on a low plane. It 1 
never been stirred by the consciousness of God, nor 

broadened by the obligations and privileges of 

spiritual attainments possible to it, nor comforted 
by the Christian's blessed hope. 

What a strange creature man is! How wonder- 
fully he is endowed ! How little he knows of his 
real self! Who can picture the untold powers of 
happiness of which a human being is capable? Or 
of the depths of misery to which he may be plunged ? 
Or the nobility of action and execution which are 
possible to a resolute soul? 

Experience teaches us by suggestion rather than 
by realization. The tremendous possibilities of pain 
and anguish possible to us in the fullest flow of life 
arc largely concealed quantities. 44 Some sudden 
pang of remorse ; the slow anticipation of a cruel 

row; the loss of an object dear to us; or the in- 
tense yearning of deep affection, frequently startles 
us with the dreadful conviction of hoii' much we may 
6 



Sz The Upward Leading. 

be made to suffer; and then conies the thirst for 
sympathy, and the fear that we shall not find it. 
The world knows nothing of our heart ; the best 
friend may not understand its many windings; and 
even if we could trust him, our efforts to explain 
ourselves most frequently end in the simple declara- 
tion that words can not express what we mean. In 
short, as far as human sympathy goes, there must 
still be man}' a time when a man feels that he is 
utterly alone." 

And this feel:- neliness is especially char- 

acteristic of the carnal State. The practice of things 

forbidden and the abusive indulgence in things al- 
lowed bring condemnation. In natural sorrow and 

affliction a person can go to God and find comfort, 
but when under condemnation this comfort is cut off. 
The lonely, condemned, depressed carnal mind may 

whisper in some trusted ear an intimation of its 

5, but tlu- consolation it thus receives is not ade- 
quate to its requirements. The conviction that its 

sin is deliberate and willful, that its secret and use- 
less wrongs hav( offended God, that the Divine 
source of relief is cut off to it. are crushing to peace 
and comfort, and discouraging to hop 

Such condemnation, often borne in loneliness and 

'. is utterly fatal to those hoU ambitions and 



Death, Un:. Peace, 83 

satisfying aspirations natural to an immortal spirit. 
It thwarts good resolutions and gives the lie to fair 
promises. The thought thai we are nol living up 
to the full measure of our privileges, nor meeting our 
dearest obligations, nor using our talents and en- 
dowments as we ought, is simply overwhelming to 
a conscience not utterly dead. 

So also of those spiritual sins, such as pride, 
covetousness, unbelief, and all other emotions cher- 
ished in opposition to God, Thcv condemn us. 
They press us to the earth. They hold us in the 
grip of strong- condemnation. 

Some one has said that "the minds of most men 
are little better than a vast and dusty lumber-room, 
into which days and hours have been flung aside as 
useless. Here lies a golden opportunity for a good 
or a great action, which at the time he trampled on ; 
there, still glittering in one dark corner, are the 
bright talents that idleness or carelessness have left 
to rust. Xow and then appears a warm and kind 
feeling, which, because religion was not at hand to 
guide and protect it, was flung away, and has turned 
to bitterness. These are warnings unheeded, bless- 
forgotten, and gifts neglected; making one 
great class of undying memories, over which the 
dark wings of remorse will one day brood to all 



84 The Upward Leading, 

eternity.'' And if such negative delinquencies open 
the door to the phantom of eternal remorse, what 
about the cherished degradations and positive sins 
which distinguish the carnal mind? Surely they are 
the precursors of the death that never dies. "The 
\v;l a:h." "If ye live after the flesh, 

ye shall die." God has no pleasure in the death of 
the wicked, but die they must. The seeds of death 
\ n in their hearts by their own misdoings and cul- 
tivated by their own evil ways, inevitably develop 
toward the final har\ verlasting displeasure 

and pain. The carnal man is dead while he li\ 
He is a walking sepulcher, and perdition is the end 
of his journ 

IV. But over against this somber picture I re- 
joice to place a brighter view. "To be spiritually 

minded is life and peac 

The Spiritually minded are those who mind the 

thil the Spirit. The law of the Spirit of life 

in Christ JesUS hath made them free from the law of 
sin and death. Through the Spirit they have morti- 
of the body, and they are enabled to 
live to Christ. They are led by the Spirit of God, 
and are tl f God They have not received 

the spirit of bond, ar ; but they have 

received the Spirit of adoption whereby the) cry, 



1 1 viii . 1 .1 n;. I V to i.. 

Abba, Father, "The Spirit itself beareth witn 
with their spirit that they are the children of God; 
and if children, then heirs; heirs of God. and joint 
heirs with Christ." "There is therefore now no 
condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, 
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
The}- may suffer with JesUS for a little time, lout it 

ly that they ma) be glorified together with Him. 

And those who are thus spiritual enjoy gracious 
advantag 

i. They are free. Men glory in freedom. They 
fight for it. They suffer and die for it. They prize 
it when obtained. 

And here is freedom, the richest, sweetest, and 
most perfect freedom to mortals known. 

"He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside." 

He is free from the galling chains of lust. He 
counts every creature of God good, and uses it for 
lory, but he abuses nothing. For him base pas- 
sion has no bond, and inordinate greed no spur. He 
realize- that he is only a steward of the manifold 
mercies of God, and acts as one who must give an 
account. 1 fe is free from the feverish thirst for 
pleasure and the unseemly struggle for place. He 



S6 The Upward Leading. 

is the wise man who commands himself, and is com- 
manded by no power short of God. 

2. He is in touch with the Master. He has fel- 
lowship with the purest Being that ever lived on 
earth. IK- is assured of help from the highest 
source. He consults with God. He is in counsel 
with heaven. IK* rejoices in the consciousness that 
no man is blessed with environments superior to his 
own. He lives and moves and has his being in God. 

3. His aims harmonize with the Divine. He is 
-worker with God. The ultimate end of all his 

toil is the gl( try <>f I '•< >d. 1 [c feels himself allied with 
the most gracious power in the universe and iden- 
tified with the : movement 

4. He is OOnsdoUS Of the new life. It stirs his 

It fires his ambition. It gives him confi- 
dence for broad plans and severe undertaking-. Por 

him to live IS Christ So long as his fed touch the 

shores of earth he is filled, thrilled, comforted, and 

blest by the surging, upholding, controlling life 

within. 

5. He has peace. He 13 justified by faith. The 
peace of God comforts him. Nothing worries him. 
He rests in the Everlasting Arm.-. Sin is gone. 
Pride is gone. He covets earnestly the best gifts, 



Death, Lin., iy.u i.. 87 

ami covets nothing else. He illustrates the Divine 
order, "first pure, then peaceable." 

6. He has a foretaste of heavenlj bliss. His life 
is hid with Christ in God. He has tasted <>i" an 

I, and is ministered unto by messengers from the 
Throne. He has an anchor for his SOlll, and fears 
no storms, lie has a prospect for his spirit, and 
dreads not death. His affections are normal in rela- 
tion to kindred and friends, and they are also placed 
on tilings above, so that no earthly happening can 
whelm him in despair. lie is "as the wings of a 
dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yel- 
low gold." In due time those wings shall spread 
and bear him peacefully to eternity. 



VI. 

THE PURPOSE OF PREACHING. 

"Whom we preach, warning every man, and tcacli- 
ing every man in all wisdom, that we may present 

every man perfect in Christ Jesus." — Coi* 1. 2& 

The great purpose of preaching is to perfect 
Christian character. 

"He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; 
an<l some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teach- 
ers; for the perfecting of the saints/ 1 

The faithful preacher warns every sinner and 
instructs every believer that each may be delivered 
from sin and fully established in -race. Sometimes 

talk about n preach, but 

the real call : ,e men by preaching. Evangel- 

ism is the supreme busi [ the Christian life. 

There is no better preparation for heaven than so to 
live as to be rallying others to go through the 
pearly § 

A test of the Church's vigor is its power to prop- 
agate itself. It must win friends from its fees, re- 



THE 1 'i fRF '.-i I -i' I *REAi m ; 

generate their hearts, transform their lives, and 

them to work to win others. A vigorous Churcli 
is a growing Church, a Church allied to God, conse- 
crated to His truth, ami united with Him in works 
oi mercy and love. 

By the Church we mean the ministers as well 
as members, ami the members as well as ministers. 

There are no ranks or orders in grace. He that 

keeps himself pure and obeys God has the highest 

title known to 1 Kvinity, 1 le is an heir to the Throne, 
and shall rule kingdoms. Von remember that when 
Paul gave instruction to Timothy he told him to look 
out for his character first, and then to his beliefs. 
"Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; con- 
tinue in them ; for in doing this thou shalt both save 
thyself and them that hear thee." Ministers need 
to save themselves as well as to save others, and the 
minister wdio is himself abundantly saved is the one 
most likely to inspire other believers to seek an utter- 
most salvation. 

The mission of Jesus Christ into this world is 
to save men. "Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for 
Ik- -hall save the people from their sins;" not in 
their sins, but from their sins. 

"Ye know that lie was manifested to take away 
our sins, and in Him is no sin." 



90 The Upward Leading. 

Pilate examined Jesus closely, and said, "I find 
no fault in this man." His bitterest enemies were 
obliged to conjure up objections to His character 

that they might have pretext for putting Him to 

death. 

Jesus was sinless. "Which of you convinced] 
Me of -in?" Yet in His human life He lived a life 

of prayer like yours and mine, ami was humbly de- 
pendent on His Father. Having set such an ex- 
ample, lie -aid: "Follow Me." "Every one that is 

perfect .-hall be as his Master." "Be ye therefore 

perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 

perfect/ 1 Be perfect by having your hearts emptied 

el -in and filled with love. Be perfect tinites even as 

your Father is a perfect Infinite, lie does not com- 
mand us to attain to Divine perfection, nor to an- 
gelic perfection, nor even to ideal perfection as men, 
but to have the love Of God BO enthroned within our 

hearts that our character- and lives will exemplify 
it in all relations. Jesus commanded us to love God 

with all our hearts, and OUT neighbors as ourselves. 
This is perfect love. 

Jesus said to the young man, "If thou wilt enter 
into life, keep the commandments." Again: "If 
thou will be perfect, sell all that thoti hast and give 
to the poor." The particular thing in his case which 



Tn i: 1 Vkr« >SE « >r pRE wn g\ 

was keeping him from the fullness <>i" the Divine 
life he was to put away. With some it is property.; 
with others, pleasure; with others, sinful tempers; 
with others, acquired selfishness; but whatever may 

mar our perfection as disciples Of the Lord Jesus 

We are to "put away. 

Man}- Stagger at the term perfection in Chris- 
tiana}- ; because they think that what is implied in it 
is inconsistent with a state of probation, and savors 
of pride and presumption; but, as Dr. Adam Clarke 
says. "We must take good heed how we stagger at 
any word of God ; and much more how we deny or 
fritter away the meaning of any of His sayings, lest 
He reprove us, and we be found liars before Him." 
Speaking of this Christian perfection he says : "Had 
I a better word, one more energetic, one with a 
greater plenitude of meaning, one more worthy of 
the efficacy of the blood that bought our peace and 
cleanseth from all unrighteousness, I would gladly 
adopt and use it. Even the word 'perfection' has, in 
some relations, so many qualifications and abate- 
ments that can not comport with that full and 
glorious salvation recommended in the Gospel and 
bought and sealed by the blood of the cross, that I 
would gladly lay it by, and employ a word more 
positive and unequivocal in its meaning, and more 



92 Tut: Upward Leading, 

worthy of the merit of the infinite atonement of 
Christ, and of the energy of His almighty Spirit ; 
but there is none in our language, which I deplore 
as an inconvenience and a loss/ 1 

St. John did not "stagger" at this word per- 
fection, but on the contrary, used it as the only term 
which could expi supreme fact. "God is love; 

and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and 
God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that 
we may haw boldness in the day of judgment; be- 
cause as He IS, SO are we in this world. There is no 
fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear; be- 
cause fear hath torment, lie that feareth is not 
made perfect in love." This language clearly shows 

that the lovii tie considered it spiritually nat- 

ural that all believer> should be made "perfect in 
love." 

And BO it was with St. Paul. Xot one bit did 
that mighty logician " -'* at this common 

Scriptural word which seems to have offended BO 
many. He u>ed it without a quaver in his voice Of 
a halt in hi n. The supreme aim of his 

ministry was to "present every man perfect in 

Chris In his letter to the Thessalonians 

he >peaks of them as having "faith and labor of 
love," as the "elect of God," as having "much a>- 



Tm i. Pi rpi »sh « 'i 1 Breach i 93 

surance and joj in the Holy Ghost," so thai they 
"ensamples to all that believe;" and yet he 
expresses a desire to see them thai he might 
"perfect that winch was lacking in their faith/ 1 to 
the end that the Lord might "establish their hearts 
unblamable in holiness before Cod." 

Paul was always writing in just this style. He 

desired that all his parishioners should be sanctified 

wholly, lie regarded this wonderful doctrine as the 
crowning glory of the Gospel. I Ie gives us the word 
and example of leaving first principles and of going 
on to perfection. His last words to the Hebrew 
brethren, written after St. James and other apostles 
had suffered martyrdom, and when he knew his own 
end was near, rang out clear and strong for the per- 
fected life: "Now the God of peace, that brought 
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great 
Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the ever- 
lasting covenant make you perfect in every good 
work to do His will, working in you that which is 
well pleasing in His sight." 

There is but one passage in all Paul's writings 
which can be construed as a confession that he him- 
self was not a perfect Christian. Here it is: "Not 
as though I had already attained, either were already 
perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend 



94 The Upward Leading. 

that for which also I am apprehended of Christ 
Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have appre- 
hended : but this one thing- I do, forgetting those 
things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, I pn ard the 

mark for the prize of the high calling of God in 
Chri>t Jesus.' 1 | Phil, iii, 12-14.) The meaning of 
this passage all turns upon what Paul considered 
"the prize" The 'context shows thai he was speak- 
ing of knowing Christ and the "power of His resur- 
rection," "if by any means he might attain unto the 

resurrection of the dead." Not a- though he had 

already attained; but he followed after. IK' was 

bound to have a fellowship in the sufferings and 
triumph <>f his Lord. The glory of the resurrection 
life v.a- the "prize" he wa ng. And he add-. 

"Let uSj therefore, as many a- Ik- perfect, be tints 
minded." The plain meaning of the entire passage 
is that, in reference t<» the experiences beyond his 
mortal career, he had not yd attained, but he "fol- 
lowed after," while in the present experiences of 
grace he, with others, was "perfect." Our Lord 
used similar language in reference to His earthly 
humiliation: "I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and 
the third day I shall be perfected." 

Paul presented in his experience all the character- 



Til I! 1 *\ Kl'< ISE I >!' I 'K: VCH] 

istics of a perfected Christian life. He had a con- 
tented mind, a humble heart, a pure conscien 
burning love for God and souls, a submissive dis- 
position, a fruitful life, and a readiness to meet 

death. 

There is only one recorded incidenl in his whole 

career that can be construed as contrary to the doc- 
trine oi Scriptural holiness, and that incident oc- 
curred when he was on trial for his life. (Acts 
xxiii. 1-5.) But I have never blamed him much for 

the spirited rebuke he administered to Ananias. 
That was an instance in which he could be angry 
and sin not. Besides, when reminded of his alleged 
offense, lie offered his apology, thereby showing 
himself to be a perfect gentleman as well as a per- 
fect Christian. 

Paul did not believe in willful sinning, lie de- 
clared that "all have sinned and come short of the 
glory of God ;" but he speaks of believers as having 
been "made free from sin and become servants of 
God, and as having fruit unto holiness and the end 
everlasting life." He could say with John, "He 
that COmmitteth sin is of the devil." Hear this, ye 
who make light of this gracious doctrine and plead 
n as a necessity in human nature and consistent 
with the Christian name, lie who deliberately sins 



96 The Upward Leading. 

is a servant of Satan, and thereby proves that the 
spirit of the devil is in him, and not the Spirit of 
Christ, for Christ came to destroy the works of the 
devil. The devil sinneth from the beginning. He 
was the father of sin. IK' brought sin into the world, 
and maintains sin by living in the hearts of those 
who do not resist him, leading them into transgres- 

n and persuading them that there is no deliver- 
ance from sin in this life. 

Sin is the only thing which mars Christian per- 
fection. The inevitable mistakes of frail humanity 
d<» not necessarily rob us of holiness. The innumt 
able temptations to which we are subjects d<» not 
necessarily spot our characters. Sin is in yielding. 

■ 

:n." 

St. Augustine defined temptation as a thought, 
an in.; n, a delight, an assent. Temptation 

is - ist at the first tw<> points, but difficult 

afterward. Sin is transgression. It i> the willful, 
reckles ion of a known law. The true Chris- 

tian d<>e- not -in. "Whosoever abided] in Him sin- 
neth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, 

neither known I lim." 

Christian perfection is no more nor less than de- 



Til i: I 'i Rpi >SE i "' 1 *RE M hi 

liverance from the disposition to commit sin; that 
disobey God, and the enjoyment of that inward 

fullness of the blessing of the ( Jospel of Christ which 
is promised to all believers. To be filled with God 
is a great thing; to be filled with the fullness of 
is still greater; but to be filled with all the fullness 
of God is the greatest of all, and is the highest mark 
of Christian character on earth. 

The conception of the possibility of such a life, 
and the recognition of it as taught in the Scriptures, 
IS what gave distinction to the Wesleys and the early 
Methodists. In Luther's mind, justification was the 
central idea; in Calvin's, the decrees; but Wesley 
viewed Christianity as a scheme for perfect redemp- 
tion, and the doctrine of perfect love became the 
formal principle of his theology. "It," he says, "is 
the grand depositum which God has given to the 
people called Methodists, and chiefly to propagate 
this, it appears, God has raised them up." Meth- 
odism was born to propagate this truth. The "Holy 
Club" was formed at Oxford in 1729 to seek, gain, 
perpetuate, and proclaim the doctrine of a hoi}- life. 
The Wesleys there sought perfection, and White- 
field joined them for that purpose. There never 
would have been a Methodist Church, but for the 
Bible doctrine and experience of perfect love. Dr. 
7 



98 Tin: UPWARD LEADING. 

George Peck averred that "the doctrine of entire 
sanctification, as a distinct work wrought in the 
soul by the Holy Ghost, is the great, distinguishing 
doctrine of Methodism. This given up, and we have 
but little left which we do not hold in common with 
ether evangelical denominations." 

The early Methodists were as much distinguished 

by their earnestness in g sanctification by faith 

a distinct work of grace as the}- were by seeking 

justification by faith. Holiness was pressed upon 

them by the preachers as their present privilege, and 

the preachers in turn were urged by Mr. Wesley 

to "preach perfection to believers constantly, ur- 

ntly, and explicitly." In a letter t«> Mrs. Bennis 

he said "i" a certain brother: "1 hope he is not 

ashamed to preach full salvation, receivable now, by 

faith. This is the word which God will always bless, 
and which the devil peculiarly hates; therefore he 
Stantly Stirring Up both his own children and 
the weak children of God against it." In a letter 
to another he said that "if a man is not a thorough 

friend t< i Christian p n he will easily puzzle 

others, and thereby weaken, if not destroy, any 

led society." He said further: "If we can prove 

that any of our local preachers or leaders, either 
directly or indirectly, speak against this doctrine, let 



Th i. Pi RPOSB I "' PREACH i 99 

him be a local preacher or leader no longer. I doubt 
whether he should continue in the societ) ; bee 

he that can speak thus in our congr< can not 

be an honest man." 

In his sermons and exhortations Mr. We 
always presented this theme in its most attractive 

and beautiful life. More than one-half of the hymns 
h< composed are upon the subject of holiness. He 
never faltered, even to his dying day, either in public 
Or private, in exhorting the people to expect pardon 

or holiness to-day, and not to-morrow. And I be- 
lieve that, were he alive to-day and ministering- to 
this great American Church, lie would proclaim this 
truth just as strongly, fearlessly and clearly as he 
did in England more than a century ago. Nothing 
would daunt him. Opposition would only inflame 
his zeal, and persecution would only settle him in the 
conviction that men need holiness to keep them from 
being fiends. Mr. Wesley desired his ministers to 
continue to preach holiness to the end of time. 

Dr. Adam Clarke said that if the Methodists 
gave up preaching entire sanctification, they would 
soon lose their glory. "This fitness," said he, "to 
appear before Cod, and thorough preparation for 
eternal glory, is what I plead for, pray for, and 
heartily recommend to all true believers. " 



L ofC. 



ioo Tin: Upward Leading. 

Bishop Asbury writing to Henry Smith, said : 
"Preach sanctilication directly and indirectly in 
every sermon." To another he exclaimed : "O, 
purity! O, Christian perfection! O, sanctification ! 
It is heaven below to fed all sin removed. Preach 
it. whether the} will hear or forbear. Preach it!" 

Dr. Lovick Pierce, in a sermon before the South- 
ern Methodist General Conference, reflected that 
"Just SO Ear as our Church has ceased to believe in 
entire sanctihcati< >n and to seek after it as the only 

phase of religion revealed in the New Testament 

that saves US from all sin, JUSl SO far are we B cor- 
rupted and God-forsaken Church, and it is user 

to try to sustain ourselves on what we have been." 
This is true. The great things our fathers did will 
not atone for our dereliction. Because they pro- 
claimed hell fire for -inner-, and heaven for saints 
alone, will not excuse us in neglecting to declare 
the wh< ile d tinsel < »f GocL 

True, some will SCOff at this doctrine. These we 

must "warn." Dangerous is the condition of thai 

man who can make light of, Or sneer at, a doctrine 
which is calculated to take US out from the grip of 
the devil and tit US for companionship with Cod and 
the angels. ( Others will listen in respectful silence, 
or eagerly inquire for more of the truth. These WC 



Tn 1: I Yki'i »si: i "' I *RE KCR] . tOl 

arc to "teach in all wisdom." My own experience is 
that all earnest Christians are waiting and hoping 
for fearless presentation by all ministers of the deep 
thin-- of God, 

But who is sufficient? Any minister can study 
this doctrine, and in Bible figure and language pre- 
sent it to his people for their edification. lie is best 
fitted, however, who knows the truth, not only in 
mind hut in heart, and can urge forward all seekers 
in the path which he himself hath trod, saying, 
"Follow me, as I follow Christ." Wonderful is the 
power which this experience gives to every minister 
of Christ ! 

Let me present two witnesses, one from each of 
the two leading- branches of Methodism. 

Speaking of his sanctification, Dr. Alfred Cook- 
man wrote : "The evidence in my case was as direct 
and indubitable as the witness of sonship vouchsafed 
at the time of my adoption into the family of heaven. 
Xeed I say that the experience of sanctification in- 
augurated a new epoch in my religious life? Some 
of the characteristics of this higher life were ble 
rest in Jesus, a clearer and more abiding experience 
of purity through the blood of the Lamb. What a 
conscious union and constant communion with God ; 
wdiat increased power to do and to suffer the will of 



102 Tin-: Upward LEADING. 

my Father, a steadier growth in grace; what delight 
in the Master's service; what fear to grieve the in- 
finitely Holy Spirit : what love for and desire to be 
with those who love holiness ; what access and confi- 
dence in prayer; what interest and comfort in relig- 
ious conversation ; what illumination and joy in the 
perusal of the blessed Word ; what increased unction 
and power in the pulpit !" 

Dr, W. I). Godbey, of the Kentucky Conference, 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who had a clear 
conversion and an unmistakable call to the ministry, 
that after his conversion he wandered in the 
wilderness nineteen years, during fifteen of which he 
preached the gospel, his Ik art incessantly the scene 
of a terrible civil war. But in [858 he was sent to 
a circuit where Ik- found Some people who enjoyed 
n than he did. He SOOn found they were 

praying for him. Bui he had no sympathy with the 
rine of holm - distinct experience, and re- 

garded its ad Fanatics. Dm the Holy Spirit 

led him into the light "My weary soul." he says, 
"found rest, happy rest, in tin- arms of JesUS. And 
where is now the war? The battle is fought, the 
victory is won. the field is silent. Fifteen years have 

rolled away since that peiitecostal baptism, but the 
-acred lire Still flashes from the crown of mv head 



Til i: 1 *i RPOSE OF I *RE ^CHl [03 

to the soles ol my feet. My ministerial character 
has undergone a radical revolution. I was never 
before a revivalist, but since thai memorable epoch 
the thousand souls have professed conversion and 
several sanctifications at my meetings/ 1 

These testimonies are clear. They speak a tre- 
mendous fact in possible Christian experience. They 
argue no theory and specify no method, but they do 
set forth a condition happy to occupy and bit 
in its convergences. 

As ministers we need this experience. It will 
make our preaching effective. It is the basis of pul- 
pit triumph. David prayed for it (Psa. li, 10-13), 
knowing that, with his own heart clean, he could 
uach. transgressors the law and lead sinners into 
saving grace. 

"Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord." 
Be ye innocent that warn others of guilt. Be ye 
rescued that lift danger signals before the eyes of 
the perishing. 



VII. 

THE CHRISTIAN'S SECRET OF A SATIS- 
FIED LIFE. 

"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him/' 

— PSA, xxv, 14. 
Tin; true Christian h; :vt. a great secret, 

a pn cret worth guarding. His 

secret is, in part, knowledge that he is visited of 
Christians have prayed as David did, "Re- 
turn, we beseech Th< lod of 1 >k down 
from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, and the 
ard which Thy right hand hath planted/ 1 and 
und their prayers answered. God visits 
men on earth. He in Spirit power to save 
and c ks to the heart. Those that 

Q to 1 [is v< ice and bid I Km Stay, come into com- 
munion with Him, They find themselves the hosts 
of a Divine Guest, and thus discover the greatest 

tisfied life possible to man. They may 

not be able to explain it so that the ungodly can 

understand; for the secret of the Lord is with them 

104 



RET <>r \ Sai ISF1ED I .in:. 

that [ear Him, Soul communion is spirituallj dis- 
cerned. The carnal mind can nol comprehend it. 
But its effects arc visible. Character is thus trans- 
formed, and the life takes on new loveliness and 
purity. The communing soul is sure of its ground. 
There is a direct intercommunion of mind with mind, 
between the creature and God, of which the soul is 
just as conscious as it is of its own operations in the 
normal flow of life. 

Often the Christian would like this fact to be 
known to the world, in accordance with the thoughts 
of the Psalmist: "Show me a token for good, that 
they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: 
because Thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted 
me." The apprehension of the present Comforter 
and Helper is so impressive and powerful to the 
Christian that lie would fain have the ungodly ap- 
preciate its truth. How good it is to have the ''high 
and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" descend to 
a direct intercommunion with our minds, so that, 
while we do not see His face in visible manifestation, 
we know we have "a place by Him," and as "His 
glory passes by," He "puts us in the cleft of the 
rock," and "covers us with 1 lis hand while 1 le pass 
by." Then "lie takes away His hand," and reveals 
to us such views and features of His character I 



106 Tiih Upward Leading. 

we are able to bear. We commune with Him. We 
become acquainted with His thoughts, feelings, and 
will in respect to us. something, perhaps, as ours are 
known to Him. We feel that He is not afar off. 
lie is nigh. He is thinking about us, whispers His 
consolation and encouragement, bids us go forward 
in well-doing, i us of His love, and in a thou- 

sand ways makes us the conscious subjects of His 
loving regard. Tims our cup of blessedness is full. 
The river of life rises up in our souls and bears us 
onward toward the ocean of eternal peace. Our 
minds become invigorated by this wonderful spirit- 
ual knowledge, so that we understand much truth 
which before was mysterious. Our faith grows 
tnger, our love increases, our hope brightens. 
"Old things pass away; all thin-- become new." 
\\ e feel that we have jusl begun to learn how to live, 
AW- sing unto the Lord a new song. We begin to 
bless His name, and show forth His salvation from 
day to day. We willingly bring an offering and 
me into His courts, and we strive to worship Him 
in the beauty < >f h< tliness. ( Kir apprehensi< his of His 
presence and perfections are distinct and vivid. Our 
sense of His fullness of grace and love is satisfactory 
and abiding. We are conscious that in Him we 
g infinite treasures. He is our shield and our 



RE i* <>i' \ S \ PISFIED I J I B. 107 

reat reward. Our prayers are now en- 
riched. We speak to a present God, who is all at- 
tention to our requests. His heart is moved with 
our hearts. We are one with Him. Our "joy is 
full/ 1 We "have power with God." We stand in 
that relation to Him which the righteous sustains, 

SO that we "can dispute with Him." The promi 
are now "Yea and amen in Christ Jesus." We know 
what it is to "speak to God face to face," and to 
plead with Him in importunate and prevailing sup- 
plication. The Bible becomes a new book. Every 
sentence and word seems aflame with life. A new 
and hitherto hidden meaning bursts forth from every 
. We discover that it is in truth tKe Worcl of 
God. It not only tells about God, but reveals His 
character and makes known His way. Our fellow 
Christians, too, seem more interesting to us. We 
are fellow citizens with the saints and of the house- 
hold of God. All who enter into this blessed realiza- 
tion have complied with the requirements of God. 
The}- have become humble and contrite in spirit and 
tremble at His word. They have by faith entered 
the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, and 
have become "pure in heart." They love the Savior 
and keep His commandments. They seek the Lord 
with all their hearts. They never give up until con- 



io8 The Upward Leading. 

scious that Christ has come to them and made His 
abode with them. God thus becomes "mindful of 
them and visits them." God is their "everlasting 
light, and the days of their mourning are ended." 
Mrs. Ellen Lakshmi Goreh. a Brahmin lady of 
India, who is a zealous missionary among her own 
country-women, composed some verses which not 

only prove her familiarity with the Muse, hut, what 
IS better, her close t«»uch of SOU] with the Infinite 
Savior. The poem was brought to the attention 
of the American public by the Heathen Woman's 

Friend, and it strikingly illustrate- the power of the 
Gospel to bring the pagan mind into the knowledge 
lie Divine Secret \ 

"In ti.- w my SOU] delights tn hide! 

O how precious are the less 0118 which I learn at JcSUS* side! 

Earthly care-- can never vex me, neither trials lay me low, 
For when Satan I mpt me, to the secret place I go. 

When my soul is faint and thii>ty, 'neath the shadow of His 
wing 

There is cool and pleasant shelter, and a fresh and crystal 

Bpril 

And my Saviur rests be-ide me a- we hold COmmUIUOfl 

■ et — 

If I tried I could not utter what He says when thus we 
meet. 



Si I iv 1 f Di' A S \ I ISi'Ii.h I j i'i:. 

Only this I know — I tell Him all my doubts, and griefs, 

and fears ; 

a patiently He listens, and my drooping BOttl He 

cheers I 

Do you think IK- ne'er reproves me? What a false friend 

would l fe be 
[f lie never, never told me oi the sins which He must sec! 

>U think that I could love Him half SO well, or as I 

ought, 

If He didn't tell me plainly of each sinful deed and 

thought? 
No; He is very faithful, and that makes me trnst Him 

more, 
For I know that He does love me, though lie wounds me 

very sore. 

Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the 

Lord? 
Go and hide beneath His shadow, this shall then be your 

reward : 
And whene'er you leave the silence of that happy meeting 

place, 
You must mind and bear the image of your Master in your 

face. 

You will surely lose the blessing and the fullness of your 

joy, 
If you let dark clouds distress you, and your inward peace 

destroy. 
You may always be abiding, if you will, at Jesus' side; 
"In the secret of His presence' you may every moment hide." 

But there is another part of this Christian secret 
which is quite as satisfying as the foregoing; viz., 
the knowledge that the believer can do something 



no The Upward Leading. 

for God. In a sense we can do nothing for God. 
He is supreme in power and authority, complete in 
character and glory. Man's work can not add to 
His infinite sufficiency. But in matters of grace, 
God accommodates Himself to our need, and makes 
it possible for US to serve Him. lie has SO consti- 
tuted us that we can be well satisfied only when 
serving. Hence He calls us "co-workers," and He 
expects u ke a place in His vineyard and do 

something while we live. We are to help ourselves 

by helping others. We are to forge ahead by doing 
good We are to make | 3 by obeying the laws 

of progress. Now. the laws of progress are these: 

1. Keeping faith alive. Faith may be cultivated 
and nurtured. Doubt should be guarded against. 
The evidences of truth should be kept fre>h in mind. 
The realization of saving grace should be momen- 
tarily retained. Lady Maxwell says, "The Lord 
teaches me thai it is by Bimple faith alone that T can 

either obtain, retain, or increase with regard to any 

I V -pel blessing." 

2. Always doing something for the Master. Set 

a perfect example. Deny yourself needless indul- 
gences. Fill up your life with hole, practical, sen- 
sible labors. Talk with others about religion, and 
talk like a man or woman. Don't be "goody- 



Sivki. i of \ S \ riSFlED I .11 i .. fir 

goody," but be cheerful, pleasant, and deeply in ear- 
Help the weak. Relieve the distressed. Find 
out tit cases for practical philanthropy, and tell other 
Christians about them. 

3. Persistently watching against Satan. "We 
arc not ignorant of his devices/' Whether the devil 
is a person or a condition or a principle matters little, 
but whether he trips you up matters much. Keep 
out of his grip. Watch your thoughts. Hold your 
temper. Guard your speech. Give no occasion in 
any way for the enemies of God to blaspheme. 

4. Diligently worshiping God. Prayer is the 
breath of the soul. It is an excellent w r ay to keep 
God's life in the heart. Men rarely backslide in 
prayer-meeting*. Preaching is a source of almost' 
unfailing profit to the hearer. The testimony meet- 
ing is helpful by way of commitment to God. Any 
kind of social service is better than none. Be a wor- 
shiper. 

5. Pouring your money into channels of useful- 

For where your treasure is, there will your 
heart be also. Give more cash to the club, or lodge, 
or resort than you do to the Church, and the result 
will be less love for the house of God than for some 
other thing-. 

6. Trying consfantlv to enlist recruit for Christ. 



ii2 Tin-; Upward Leading. 

He who saves others promotes his own safety. He 
who warms another brightens his own lire. There 
is no surer way of keeping right with God and with 
conscience than by maintaining the evangelistic prac- 
tice. Men never send their own souls to hell by 
ther souls to heaven. A soul may be lost 
ite of good works, hut more souls are lost with- 
out g<»od works than with them. 

And there is still another part of this Christian 
secret which can not he ignored; viz., we gain 
ground in grace in proportion a- we use grace al- 
ready given. This is the meaning of such expres- 
sions as "He giveth m ice" and "grace for 
grace." Saving faith is appropriative as well as per- 
ceptive, and iis appropriation must measurably equal 

its p n ere new view 'S of possible advance- 

re given. X« > r heard of a 

secular and carnal man making great discoveries in 

the vital ex; - of the Divine life, lie may 

have a clear conception of what the life of faith is; 
indeed, this light n to all who have the Gospel ; 

but until lie walks in this light, using it in practical 
g for his own good and for the good of others, 
he will not receive new gifts of heavenly radiance, 
nor stronger unfoldings of the spiritual life. Walk- 
in the light and thou shalt see thy pathway illumi- 



Se< ret 01 \ s \ i isi Mi* 1 .1 1 1:. 1 13 

', as thou proceedestj but turn aside, refusing 
to obey the mandates of the Spirit, and thou shall 
thy path beclouded and impenetrable darkness 
settling over thy spiritual vision. This is the reason 
why so many persons, who have for a time enjoyed 
the cheering and illuminating influences of the Spirit, 
have afterwards become doubtful, critical, cynical, 
and even morose. They sinned againsl light and 
knowledge. They did not absorb into their char- 
acters the rich spiritual elements that God bad be- 
stowed upon them, and thus they lost strength and 
standing. 

Spiritual growth implies a constant appropriation 
of the elements that contribute to growth, just as a 
tree or plant absorbs the elements from earth and 
air and water which maintain it in vigorous life. 
A professed Christian, or an enlightened but unre- 
newed sinner, is like a dead or dying tree, illustrating 
all the various stages of decay and decline. Some 
are dead only at the top, the lower branches still 
bearing leaves or even fruit. Some are dead at the 
root, the very marrow of their faith being chilled 
and sapless. Whatever their state of decline, they 
are in an unsatisfactory and dangerous condition. 
It is always dangerous to be diseased and dying. 
Any withered and drooping object in the vegetable 



ii4 Tin-: Upward Leading. 

world excites our pity; much more so in the animal 
world ; still more so in human life : and still more so 
in the life that allies the soul to God and opens the 
gateway of eternity. Nothing more arouses our re- 
spect and admiration, whether we he Christians or 
sinners, than a strong, consistent, devoted, and grow- 
Christian character. We know that it is honor- 
able and praiseworthy t<> obey God, to do His will, 
to believe on His Son. to love His Word, to push 

His work, and to keep in tune with all that IS sweet- 

in the dispensation of His Spirit The 
growing Christian is the shining Christian, the in- 
fluential and powerful Christian. 

"They go from strength to strength 

Through thi 
Till • length, 

Till each in heaven appears ; 

O . • ' Th( ■" ( ■• 'l. our King, 

.'1 thither bring our wand i L M 

And a final pari of this consoling secret is the 
>very that life is valuable, not so much for what 

an get out of it. as for what we can put into it. 
This view kills the vigor of selfishness at one blow, 
and lifts altruism into the eminence of a primary 
duty. How can we put anything into life? By care- 



RUT <>r \ S \tishi:i> I J i'i.. i 15 

fully husbanding its resources, we can extend its 

time to the utmost. I>y diligently cultivating its 
powers we can make them more efficient. By con- 
stantly employing its gifts we can augment their 
usefulness. By studying the needs of others, and 
ministering to those needs, we can make life more 
attractive to our fellows, and thus put into the aggre- 
gate of it a greater fullness of blessing. By throw- 
>urselves into the Lord's work we can render 
His cause more formidable to its enemies and more 
encouraging to its friends, thus serving a happy part 
in the universal stewardship of humanity. From 
these active ways we shall be deriving good, as well 
as doing good. Discipline, which is all we can really 
get out of life at best, will be promoted by service. 
In the Xew Testament, service is the biggest 
word. Sacrifice to God is mentioned as only "a 
reasonable service.' , Paul speaks of doing service 
to the Lord with "good will ;" that is, resolutely, 
stoutly, unswervingly, and constantly. Jesus taught 
that we must serve God only, that service can not 
be divided, and that if we would follow Him we 
must forsake all. Our Lord threw His whole life 
into service. It is enough that the servant shall be 
as his Lord. Jesus put everything of value into life, 
and it would seem as if He got nothing out of it 



n6 The Upward Leading. 

but humiliation, pain, and death. How His service 
has enriched the world ! Going about continually 
doing good, He inspired humanity as it had never 
been inspired before with ambition for usefulness 
and all-controlling desire to lift up the world. And 
the power of His character and might of His words 
are still pouring into life with a steady stream, en- 
larging human thought, quickening all holy activity, 
and giving to mankind more wholesome view 

tion, and philanthropy. 

Without redemption human nature is essentially 
selfish. In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, 
the former is told, "Thou in thy lifetime receivedst 
thy good tilings." Worldliness tafo 1 things" 

out of life, and puts none in. Christlikeness puts 

into life, and take- none out. Every 

principle, motive, and condition of happy living is 

benefited and ennobled by a life patterned after that 

of Christ Therefore Paul counted not his life dear 

unto himself SO that he might finish his COUrse with 

and the ministry he had received. To fulfill 
his mission was his supreme aim; not to eat and 
drink and pursue pleasure, but to utilize strength 

and make it count for God. Every example of 

martyr, apostle, reformer, evangelist, and practical 
Christian worker since the Church was founded 



Secret o* a Satisfied i ,irr.. 1 17 

points to the idea of value put into life rather than 
value extracted from it. Salvation itself is a divine 
clement put into life through the exercise of peni- 
tence and faith, rathrr than a quantity taken out of 
life by compliance with God's law. All that we take 
with us into the next world — viz., character re- 
deemed and perfected — will be the fruit of sowing 
and planting, cultivating and laboring, believing- and 
sacrificing, or, in other words, putting all we can 
into life as it passes. 



VIII. 

A PLEASANT FINAL ADIEU. 

"The time of my departure is at hand. 1 

—2 Tim. iv, 6. 

USUALLY there is a dread at departing for any 
long journey, and the m when it is a journey 

that can never be retraced. But here is a man who 

speaks of his own final departure from this world 

as con p sedly as if the trip were t<> be only for a 
day; knowing . that the departure would he at- 

tended by violence and other terrifying aspects. M I 
am now ready to be offered," he exclaims, as if the 

"offering" were- the merest incident in his long and, 
eventful life. Tie does not dwell UpOfl the thought 

of "departure," nor even upon the dreadful tr;i 
tliat was mpany it. as if these were principal 

things, but he d< >es make the matter of being "ready" 

and the "time" then at hand the SUbjed of remark. 
With him a correct moral condition and the nearness 
of eternity were of greater moment than the act of 

118 



A I'm \ w i PlNAt AdI: 119 

Nero's swordsman or the mere period of future 
durati »n. 

Paul was "ready." This was the main thing. 

J lis "time" had come With resignation amounting 

to joy lie hails the moment of his last leavetaking, 
saying it appeared "far better" than to stay. Re- 

ing his past with complacency, he could face his 
future with solid comfort. And in this dors he not 
set an example for us to follow? Is it not possible 
for all mortals so to adjust themselves to the situ- 
ation in life and death as to be perfectly reconciled 
to cither, as Providence may order? I think so, and 
it is my purpose on this occasion to note some of 
the considerations by which victory over death is 
won. 

We are told, by men who ought to know, that 
physical death is painless; that the snapping of the 
heart-strings is simply a figure of speech. The ces- 
sation of movement in the vital organs is only an- 
other phase of natural order. All suffering is sup- 
posed to imply a struggle of life against disease or 
calamity. In death this struggle gradually ends as 
life ebbs away, and at the last ceases to be. 

Even in case of violent death it is said that "the 
pain suffered is not due to death, but to the vitality 
of full health, since the suffering from acts of vio- 



120 The Upward Leading. 

lence which are the most nearly fatal is usually less 
than the suffering from those which, though danger- 
ous, do not appear to undermine equally the vital 
strength. It is not the man who suffers in being 
disembodied; it is the body which suffers before the 
man can be disembodied; and the suffering grows 
less, not greater, a> life in the body dwindles.'' 

Yet death is feared, terribly feared. Humanity 

can not get used to it. or at least so used to it as not 

to dread it. The mind will inquire, How shall I feel 
when dying? What is there beyond? What is to 
be my experience in the spirit world? Will my last 
adieu be pleasing to myself and satisfactory to the 
friends I must leave behind me? From any point of 
view, death is a most solemn event. It separates 
friends, breaks up families, depopulates nations. No 
other event has occupied human thought with so 
much seriousness. 

us thing t<> die, my soul ! 
What a strange moment it must be, when near 
Thy journey's end!— thou hast the gulf in view — 

That awful gulf, DO mortal e'er r 

T<> tell what ' her Bide. 

Nature runs hack, and shudders at the sight, 

And every life-string bleeds at thought <>i" parting; 

For part they must, — budy and buul must part; 



A PLE ^S \m I'l SAL Adii 121 

d couple; linked more close than wedded pair; 
This wings its way to its Almighty wurce, 
The witness of its actions, now its jud 
That drops into the datrk and noisome grave, 
Like a disabled pitcher, of no u 

And from the decree of Death there is no appeal. 
The grim monster reigns an absolute monarch i 

every child of num. Old and young, good and had, 
useful and worthless, must respond to his summon.-. 
Protest is useless; rebellion is vain. It is one of the 
revealed glories of the future world that, in it, 
"there shall be no more death." Until we reach that 
world, "we have the sentence of death in ourselves." 

But Death is not equally a "King of terrors" to 
all persons. Infants sink into his arms without a 
sense of horror. The aged also ripen for his long- 
dreaded harvest. To the pure and good he is robbed 
of his sting. Those who have lived long, and have 
been useful, frequently smile at his approach, while 
those wdiose lives are full of suffering often "long 
for death," and "seek for it more than for hid 
treasures." 

The prophet Isaiah (xxv, 8) intimates that Death 
is to be subdued. He sees the vision of the moun- 
tain in which the Lord of hosts shall make unto 
all people a feast of fat things, destroy the shadow}- 



122 The Upward Leading. 

covering that has filled them with gloom, remove 
the veil that was spread over all nations, swallow 
up death in victory, and wipe away tears from oft" 
all faces. 

The Gospel is the fulfillment of that ancient 
prophecy. Calvary's mountain is the scene of the 
supreme struggle. The face of the covering was 
there torn away. The veil that was spread over all 
there rent asunder. The conqueror of 
death there proclaimed the beginning of His tri- 
umph, and under His benign and graceful sway the 
> of sorrow are being wiped from <>{( all fac 
Gospel -race ; uagement f<>r grief. 

The hope ft" endless life is the only substantia] c<>n- 

LOn. 'die that believeth in Me shall never die," 

e most rting message that ever fell on 

dying ear. "Thy dead men shall live." is the most 

comforting prophecy that ever fell on living ear. 
Instinctively, we love to live; naturally, we dread 

t<> die. Under grace we may he led to say, "For 

me to live IS Christ : t«> die is L, r ain." 

Dying people usually think mosl about what has 
chiefly engaged their attention in life. Two indi- 
viduals, each noted for success in his chosen sphere — 

the one a great general, the other a teacher — were 
Hearing the shores of the other world. The last 



A 1 Yi; \>.\\ r Pi \ \i. Aim 

words of the soldier were, "1 [ead of the army," and 
the la>t order of the teacher was, "It is getting dark ; 
die school." 

metimes, when we hear of a man's death, we 

ask, "How did he die?" A more relevant question 

would he, "HOW (lid he live?" The thoughts that 

OCCUpy the mind and the emotions that stir the heart 

in life have mneh to do with the experience in death. 

This leads to the inquiry, What are the principles 

and conditions by which victory over death is won? 

1. As a preparatory thought, there must be early 
recognition of the truth that we can not stay on 
earth always. This is not our abiding home. The 
earth is not large enough to contain a deathless race. 
Its surface would soon be literally covered with flesh 
were the creature world, or even man alone, not 
under the law of death. We must recognize as an 
arrangement of Providence the conditions by which 
one generation passeth and another cometh. And 
we must learn to be acquiescent under the decree 
by which we each enjoy our little day of life and 
then join the company of those who have occupied 
before us. 

2. There must be early consecration of our 
powers to the task of accomplishing the mission we 
have on earth. Xo well-balanced mind can i\ 



[24 Tin: Upward Leading. 

human life as a missionless existence. We are not 
here by chance. We are not born simply to die. 
There is meaning in consciousness. There is duty 

in the "ought" i ience. There is untold sig- 

nificance in the felt satisfaction that follows a high 
and constant endeavor to be and do all that we know 
we should. The conviction that man's life has pur- 

in it Is not dying out, On the contrary, the 

:v of a hundred generations only tends to estab- 
lish tlie truth of the ancient concept that man is "a 

living soul," environed now by probationary con- 
ditions, and destined tO an eternal Unfolding. "Life 
is a mission/ Mazzini, the Italian patriot and 

u vol ut inn i>t. "Every other definition of life is false, 
and leads all who accept it astray. Religion, sci- 
ence, philosophy, though still at variance upon many 

points, all agree in this, that every existence is an 
aim." 

If this be true, if every life has infinite meaning 
iii it and eternal destiny before it, how important 

that in its very first unfolding it be placed in line 

with its <>wn true purpose, and that all its powers 

be employed in the execution of the Creator's de- 
signs in giving that life a time and place upon the 

earth. So lofty a conception compels the conclusion 



A 1 'u: tS \vr l ; l N \l. . \ I M I 
tlial with SO much to do and so little time, WC have 

not a moment to waste nor one talent to fold up in 
a napkin. We must be doing our work. We must 
ho discharging duty, improving privilege, bearing 
obligation, and otherwise ministering to this innate 

conviction that to be read}- for death wc must make 

the most of life; that if we would have triumph over 
Our last enemy we must likewise suhduc our first 
atid most constant opponent, the disposition to be 
selfish, idle, and unconcerned while precious mo- 
ments fraught with immortal possibilities are hurry- 
ing past Rousseau said that "all that time is lost 
which might be better employed." What waste of 
days, therefore, do the lives of idlers and tritlers 
represent ! O, be doing", friend ! Waste no moment. 
"Who murders time, he crushes in the birth a power 
ethereal." 

3. To come into harmony with God and be the 
happy subjects of His will is to learn the highest 
lesson a mortal may know upon this earth. 

There are two ways : One is foolishly to struggle 
against the inevitable, to resist the irresistible, to 
fight fate, to learn to hate God, become embittered 
at fortune, dissatisfied with life, and at enmity with 
all things good ; and the other is to learn what exist- 



126 The Upward Leading. 

ence means, revere its Author, accept its possibilities 
gladly, acquiesce in its order, and conform to its 
law, and to say, under all circumstances beyond our 
control, "It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth 
Him good/ 1 

The first way is not the preparation for final 
triumph, but for inglorious defeat. "Who art thou 
that repliest against God?" We can as easily stop 
the fury of a cyclone and control the movements of 

the wind, as we can stay the hand of Providence or 
alter the laws which govern life. Our very helpless- 

points out the course of wisdom. We must 

accept the earthly situation, and make the most of 
our Opportunities. To he reconciled to Cod, suh- 

ive to His will, obedient to His commands, in 

love with His ways, and contented with His allot- 
ments is t<> illustrate a correct philosophy. lie gets 

the most OUt <>f life, puts the most into it, and is 
prepared to leave it. who adjusts himself to his 

surroundings and practically makes conspicuous 

Paul's observation, "I am crucified with Christ: 
nevertheless I live: yet n<»t 1, hut Christ liveth in 
me: and the life which I now live in the tlesh, T live 

by the faith of the Son of Cod." All the biographies 

of saints, the histories of Churches, the records of 



A Pi i is in i Fj n m. Adu 127 

great reform movements, and the testimonies of the 
Christian ages combine to give emphasis to the truth 

that map. was made for Gpd, and finds his richest 
lation both in life and in death in doing what 
God requires and in being ready on call to n 
his spirit into the hands of God who gave it. 

4. In the provisions and promises of the Gosj 
are to be found those elements of truth and power 
and life which enable men to settle themselves, to 
rind soul-rest, and to fulfill the manifest purpose of 
existence. 

This proposition needs no argument. The Chris- 
tian scheme has world-wide acceptance. Its sup- 
porters include the wisest and best of earth. It is 
the only religion that commands serious attention 
among the enlightened nations. Beauty of precept, 
power of principle, and purity of conception there 
may be in other religious systems ; but grace to save, 
balm to heal, truth to inspire, life to energize, and 
motive to arouse, — these alone, or chiefly, are to 
be found in the teachings of the Man of Nazareth 
and in the examples and records which preceded or 
followed His career upon the earth. 

"Christianity," says Hannah More, "bears all 
the marks of a Divine origin; it came down from 



128 The: Upward Leading. 

heaven, and its gracious purpose is to carry us up 
thither. Its author is Cod. It was foretold from 
the beginning, by prophecies, which grew clearer 
and brighter as they approached the period of their 
accomplishment It was confirmed by miracles, 
which continued till the religion they illustrated was 
established. It was ratified by the blood of its 
Author; its doctrines are pure, sublime, consistent; 
its precept- just and holy; its worship is spiritual; 

ervice reasonable, and rendered practicable by 

the offers of Divine aid to human weakness. It is 

sanctioned by the promise Of eternal happiness to 
the faithful, and the threat of everlasting misery to 
the disobedient/ 1 

To support such a system, to help to establish it, 
to give it right of way and the swing of conquest, to 
accept it- ben< fits and extend its blessings, is to give 
a value worth treasuring, a love worth 
cultivating, a meaning worth investigating, and a 
satisfaction and glory worth cherishing. No man 
has found his true sphere of endeavor who, with this 

light before him and upon him, has .still rejected it; 
who. with these blessings around him and within 
him, has still disowned them; who, with this power 
after him and above him, has yet .-corned to own the 



A Pleasant Fi n u, Adii . 

truth or to make it the ruling principle of his life. 
1 lappy he, living or dj ing, who gives pra >f, by word 
and deed and bearing and character, thai he has 
"Christ put on, the hope of glory formed within." 

His exit from the world is sure to be peaceful, if 

not beautiful, 

The daughter of Governor Wright was dying. 
As she approached the last moment she said, "I'm 
going up! I'm going up on the Ineffable glory I" 
What a glorious approach! To her husband she 
said, "< ), if you could only see what I see, you would 
know why I long to go!" To her pastor, wdio was 
reading of the "valley of the shadow of death," she 
said. "There is no 'valley.' ' The night preceding 
her death she abode in the third heaven of rapture ; 
and being informed that her feet were in the Jordan 
of death, she said, 4k O, I am so glad!'' Her last 
words were: "Jesus is peace." 

When Rev. Frank Latimer McCoy, a bright and 
useful missionary to India, became satisfied, after a 
short illness, that his end was near, he said, "My 
Jesus, as Thou wilt." Later, when death was upon 
him, he cried out: "Lift me up! Bring in the lamp! 
Pan me! and I will show you how a Christian can 
die!" 
9 



130 The Upward Leading. 

A faithful preacher's wife who neared the dark- 
waters said: "It's morning. How light! How 
beautiful! Let me go quick!" Her son asked, 
"Where?" She replied, "To heaven; let me go 
quick !" These were her last words. 

In accounting for the serenity and peace of the 
dying Christian, Rev. John Wesley said that it was 
simply the sequel to the calmness of spirit which 
distinguishes believers through life. "But/ 1 said he, 
"when they have nearly finished their course, this 
nerally fl a a river, even in such a de- 

gree as it had not before entered into their hearts to 

conceive." He cites a remarkable instance, that of 
Enoch Williams, one of the first of his preachers 

to dir. He had received the Christian's peace when 
onlj eleven wars <>ld, and never lost it for an hour, 
and after rejoicing in God with joy unspeakable 

Igfa the whole of his illness, said at the last, 

"Peace I peace '" and died. 

When Mi-- Phebe Rowe, the devoted evangelist 
of India, sank to her rest at Naini Tal, she welcomed 
the messenger, saying "she was very tired." She 

could talk little, could not send mes I 1 friends 

individually, but -aid: "Tell them all I love them. 
Give my love to everybody, I wanted to live only 



A i V: w\\ i I ; i N \i. Am i 3 1 

the work, but God will raise up others to look 
after the Sheep in the wilderness." "Go< <1 to 

me to let me die among these beautiful mounta 

Then she sang : 

"M> sins arc washed away 

In the blood of the Lamb ; 
I have lost the fear of death 
Through the Mood of the Lamb. 91 

When her pure and loving heart stood still, there 
had triumphantly passed away one of the sweetest" 
spirits ever loaned to earth. 



JAN 3ClS05i 



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